Temple Grandin People Quotations

People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will totally change everything. There is no single magic bullet.

I think that autistic brains tend to be specialized brains. Autistic people tend to be less social. It takes a ton of processor space in the brain to have all the social circuits.

I had problems getting my words out. If people spoke directly to me, I understood what they said. But when the grownups got to yakking really fast by themselves, it just sounded like 'oi oi.' I thought grownups had a separate language. I've now figured out I was not hearing the hard consonant sounds.

The most important thing people did for me was to expose me to new things.

Some people with autism who don't talk, all they hear are vowel sounds. Like if I said 'cup,' they might just hear 'uh.'

I've worked with tons of people that I know who are on the spectrum - but now I think severe autism has really increased.

People need to learn how to work, learn how to support themselves. I think it's just fine to be eccentric.

I want get people to think about sensory based of thinking.

I've got a lot of other people who do a lot of things for me, so I've gotten to a part in my career where I'm doing a lot of talks because I want to get kids turned on. I want to see these kids, these geeky nerdy kids, go out there and do something.

I can explain how a person with autism thinks. I am very, very interested in how people think. It's been a gradual process of learning more and more about how my thinking process is different. You know it's bottom up - you take specific examples to make concepts and then I put them in categories.

People are getting too far away from the real-world. Politics is just ridiculous, it's totally dysfunctional.

I want to make sure to fix these obvious things - like keeping the box CLEAN! Another thing that might affect this is if you put the litter box in a laundry room where people are walking by there all the time, the cat might feel kinda too exposed. When you gotta poop, you know, it takes a little longer. You want a little more privacy.

People on the autistic spectrum tend to get fixated on what they think.

I've got a lot of people that are really good at taming animals and working with animals; and they can't explain how they do. They just get a feeling from the animal.

People wouldn’t have become who we are today if we hadn’t coevolved with dogs.

All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain.

Sometimes cats just avoid using a litter box but that's kind of strange. Most time people ask me why they go outside the litter box period.

Sometimes you have to go outside your field of study to find the right people.

Unfortunately, most people never observe the natural cycle of birth and death. They do not realize that for one living thing to survive, another living thing must die.

You could train cats do things, a lot of people don't think cats aren't trainable. Cats can be trusted just a friend.

The people that were socially awkward from my generation, they all had paper routes and that taught them the discipline of work.

I try to return my calls but I get inundated with emails and I can't answer them all. So often, I have to refer to them my webpage and the frequently asked questions or refer them to the books. But if they take the time to call me, I try to call back. You know, I am really busy, but just happened to have an hour in the hotel room and had some time before I have to meet some people about 20 minutes.

It is important that our relationship with farm animals is reciprocal. We owe animals a decent life and a painless death. I have observed that the people who are completely out of touch with nature are the most afraid of death ...

People can live up to high standards, but they can't live up to perfection.

You simply cannot tell other people they are stupid, even if they really are stupid.

Engineering is easy - it's the people problems that are hard.

Dogs serve people, but people serve cats.

People talk about curing autism. But if you got rid of all those traits, who's going to make the next computer?

In an ideal world the scientist should find a method to prevent the most severe forms of autism but allow the milder forms to survive. After all, the really social people did not invent the first stone spear. It was probably invented by an Aspie who chipped away at rocks while the other people socialized around the campfire. Without autism traits we might still be living in caves.

What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.

I strongly recommend that students with autism get involved in special interest clubs in some of the areas they naturally excel at. Being with people who share your interests makes socializing easier.