“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it is stupid."

~ Albert Einstein

“I tried to show him things, but he didn't seem to study what I showed him. Usually, he just put whatever I handed him in his mouth. He would try to eat anything. I fed him Tabasco sauce and he yelled. Having a little brother helped me learn to relate to other people. Being a little brother, Snort learned to watch what he put in his mouth.”

~ John Elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

"If you cannot be a poet, be the poem."

~ David Carradine

“Last summer, when he thought I wasn't looking, I observed Cubby telling one of the neighborhood six-year-olds that there were dragons living in the storm drains, under our street. 'We feed them meat...and then they don't get hungry and blow fire and roast us.' Little James listened closely, with a very serious expression on his face. Then he ran home to get some hot dogs from his mother.”

~ John Elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

“Soon I was spending all my time in the basement, and I had moved from taking things apart to putting new things together. I began by building simple devices. Some, like my radios, were useful. Others were merely entertaining. For example, I discovered I could solder some stiff wires onto a capacitor and charge it up. For a few minutes, until the charge leaked away, I had a crude stun gun.

...So I decided to try it on my little brother. I charged the capacitor to a snappy but nonlethal level from a power supply I'd recently removed from our old Zenith television.

'Hey, let's play Jab a Varmint,' I said. I tried to smile disarmingly, keeping the capacitor behind my back and making sure I didn't ruin the effect by jabbing myself or some other object.

'What's that?' he asked, suspiciously.

Before he could escape, I stepped across the room and jabbed him. He jumped. Pretty high, too. Sometimes he would fight back, but this time he ran. The jab was totally unexpected and he didn't realize that I only had the one jab in my capacitor. It would be several years before I had the skill to make a multishot Varmint Jabber.”

~ John Elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

"This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God."

~ Walt Whitman

"There's a dear little plant that grows in our isle,
'Twas St Patrick himself, sure, that set it;
And the sun on his labor with pleasure did smile,
And with dew from his eye often wet it.
It thrives through the bog, through the brake, and the mireland;
And he called it the dear little shamrock of Ireland..."

~ Andrew Cherry

“It must be my logical consideration of a decision many see as purely intuitive or emotional that throws other people for a loop.”

~John Elder Robison, Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

“a crying grown-up with no visible damage, who knew what that meant?”

~ John Elder Robison ~ Be Different: Adventures of a Free-Range Aspergian

May your blessings outnumber
The shamrocks that grow,
And may trouble avoid you
Wherever you go.

~ Irish Blessing

“The hard part was living the contrast between being rich and being broke. It was like being smart, and waking up one day to find yourself dumb as a rock, but able to remember your former brains.”

~ John Elder Robison ~ Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

"For each petal on the shamrock
This brings a wish your way -
Good health, good luck, and happiness
For today and every day."

~ Anonymous

“When we pulled in, the customs officer looked in the back. The back of the wagon was filled with cases stenciled PINK FLOYD--LONDON.

'Got Pink Floyd in the back of the car, do you?' he asked.

'Righto, mate. We shrunk 'em and stuck 'em in fookin' boxes, we did,' said Nigel.

Amazingly, the customs officer laughed and waved us through.”

~ John Elder Robison ~ Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's

"You've heard I suppose, long ago,
How the snakes, in a manner most antic,
He marched to the county Mayo,
And trundled them into th' Atlantic"

~ William Maginn

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising up every time we fail."

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Unlike some older brothers, I never set him on fire, or cut off an arm or leg, or drowned him in the tub.”

~ John Elder Robison