18 Great Quotes by Temple Grandin

The Art of Autism celebrates Women’s History Month.

Dr. Temple Grandin is a professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University and a prominent author and speaker on both autism and animal behavior. An outspoken advocate for the autistic community, she has been featured on NPR, the BBC, Larry King Live, 20/20, Sixty Minutes, Fox & Friends, and a 2010 TED talk. Articles about her have appeared in the New York Times, Time, Discover, Forbes and USA Today. HBO made an Emmy Award winning movie about her life. In 2016, she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

18 Great Quotes by Temple Grandin

• ʺAutism is part of who I am.ʺ -Temple Grandin
• “I always find it kind of funny that normal people are always saying autistic children ‘live in their own little world.’ When you work with animals for a while you start to realize you can say the same thing about normal people. There’s a great big, beautiful world out there that a lot of normal folks are just barely taking in. Autistic people and animals are seeing a whole register of the visual world normal people can’t, or don’t.” – Temple Grandin
• “When I did stims such as dribbling sand through my fingers, it calmed me down. When I stimmed, sounds that hurt my ears stopped. Most kids with autism do these repetitive behaviors because it feels good in some way. It may counteract an overwhelming sensory environment . . . ” – Temple Grandin
• “In college I did a lot of talking out loud because it helped me organize my thinking. A lot of autistic people talk out loud for the same reason.” -Temple Grandin
• “The first thing an effective manager must do to take care of the animals is get rid of employees who are bullies.” – Temple Grandin
• “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
• “A good manager creates an environment that reinforces good behavior by employees. The basic principle is: Make the environment work for you not against you. Never leave up to willpower and self-discipline what you can do with the environment.” – Temple Grandin
• “I cannot emphasize enough the importance of a good teacher.” – Temple Grandin
• “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.”
• “Visual thinkers of any species, animal or human, are detail-oriented. They see everything and they react to everything . . . Visual people feel horrible when little details in their visual environments are wrong, the same way animals do.” – Temple Grandin
• “We have got to work on keeping these children engaged with the world.” – Temple Grandin
• “The most important thing people did for me was to expose me to new things.” – Temple Grandin
• “Social thinking skills must be directly taught to children and adults with ASD. Doing so opens doors of social understandings in all areas of life.” – Temple Grandin
• “I wish more kids could ride horses today. People and animals are supposed to be together. We spent quite a long time evolving together, and we used to be partners.” – Temple Grandin
• “Autism is a kind of way station on the road from animals to humans, which puts autistic people like me in a perfect position to translate ‘animal talk’ into English. – Temple Gradin
• “Animals are like autistic savants . . . Animals have special talents normal people don’t, the same way autistic people have special talents normal people don’t . . . Normal people can stare straight at an animal doing something brilliant and have no idea what they’re seeing. Animal genius is invisible to the naked eye.” – Temple Grandin
• “My Advice is: You always have to keep persevering.” – Temple Grandin
• “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

> Visit www.templegrandin.com for more information about Temple Grandin.