Dee > Dee's Quotes

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
― Mae West

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

“Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did - that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest.”
― Debra Ginsberg

“On the other hand, I think cats have Asperger's. Like me, they're very smart. And like me, sometimes they simply need to be left alone.”
― Jodi Picoult, House Rules

“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.”
― Temple Grandin, The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's

“I know of nobody who is purely autistic, or purely neurotypical. Even God has some autistic moments, which is why the planets spin.”
― Jerry Newport, Your Life Is Not a Label: A Guide to Living Fully with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome for Parents, Professionals and You!

“Autists are the ultimate square pegs, and the problem with pounding a square peg into a round hole is not that the hammering is hard work. It's that you're destroying the peg.”
― Paul Collins

“I like it that order exists somewhere even if it shatters near me.”
― Elizabeth Moon, The Speed of Dark

“I do not think God makes bad things happen just so that people can grow spiritually. Bad parents do that, my mother said. Bad parents make things hard and painful for their children and then say it was to help them grow. Growing and living are hard enough already; children do not need things to be harder. I think this is true even for normal children. I have watched little children learning to walk; they all struggle and fall down many times. Their faces show that it is not easy. It would be stupid to tie bricks on them to make it harder. If that is true for learning to walk, then I think it is true for other growing and learning as well.
God is suppose to be the good parent, the Father. So I think God would not make things harder than they are. I do not think I am autistic because God thought my parents needed a challenge or I needed a challenge. I think it is like if I were a baby and a rock fell on me and broke my leg. Whatever caused it was an accident. God did not prevent the accident, but He did not cause it, either.... I think my autism is an accident, but what I do with it is me.”
― Elizabeth Moon, The Speed of Dark

“I don’t want my thoughts to die with me, I want to have done something. I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution - know that my life has meaning.”
― Temple Grandin

“I myself am opaque, for some reason. Their eyes cannot see me. Yes, that's it: The world is autistic with respect to me.”
― Anne Nesbet, The Cabinet of Earths

“The worst thing you can do is nothing. (re: teaching children with autism)”
― Temple Grandin

“I don't want to stay in the bad place, where no one believes in silver linings or love or happy endings.”
― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

“Life is hard, and children have to be told how hard life can be…So they will be sympathetic to others. So they will understand that some people have it harder than they do and that a trip through this world can be a wildly different experience, depending on what chemicals are raging through one’s mind.”
― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

“The only way to beat my crazy was by doing something even crazier. Thank you. I love you. I knew it from the moment I saw you. I'm sorry it took me so long to catch up.”
― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

“There will always be a part of me that is dirty and sloppy, but I like that, just like all the other parts of myself.”
― Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook

“Dogs, lives are short, too short, but you know that going in. You know the pain is coming, you're going to lose a dog, and there's going to be great anguish, so you live fully in the moment with her, never fail to share her joy or delight in her innocence, because you can't support the illusion that a dog can be your lifelong companion. There's such beauty in the hard honesty of that, in accepting and giving love while always aware that it comes with an unbearable price. Maybe loving dogs is a way we do penance for all the other illusions we allow ourselves and the mistakes we make because of those illusions.”
― Dean Koontz, The Darkest Evening of the Year

“Slowly, Anna put up a hand to his muzzle and began to scratch that spot behind the ear where large dogs keep their souls.”
― Eva Ibbotson, A Countess Below Stairs

“When you have dogs, you witness their uncomplaining acceptance of suffering, their bright desire to make the most of life in spite of the limitations of age and disease, their calm awareness of the approaching end when their final hours come. They accept death with a grace that I hope I will one day be brave enough to muster.”
― Dean Koontz, A Big Little Life: A Memoir of a Joyful Dog

“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
― Mary Oliver

“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Maybe...you'll fall in love with me all over again."
"Hell," I said, "I love you enough now. What do you want to do? Ruin me?"
"Yes. I want to ruin you."
"Good," I said. "That's what I want too.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“I didn't want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you good night — and there's a lot of difference.”
― Ernest Hemingway