Quotes about otherness

I thus am able to conceive of the opacity of the other for me, without reproach for my opacity for him. To feel in solidarity with him or to build with him or to like what he does, it is not necessary for me to grasp him. It is not necessary to try to become the other (to become other) nor to "make" him in my image. (p. 193)

Agree not merely to the right to difference but, carrying this further, agree also to the right to opacity that is not enclosure within an impenetrable autarchy but subsistence within an irreducible singularity. (p. 190)

Diversity, the quantifiable totality of every possible difference, is the motor driving universal energy, and it must be safe guarded from assimilations, from fashions passively accepted as the norm, and from standardized customs. ("Poetics," p. 30)

"Autistic is different, not bad. It is not wrong to be different. Sometimes it is hard, but it is not wrong." (p319)

It is harder to imagine a different self now that I am an adult. As a child, I did imagine myself into other roles. I thought I would become normal, that someday I would be able to do what everyone else did so easily. In time, that fantasy faded. My limitations were real, immutable, thick black lines around the outline of my life. The only role I play is normal. (p165)

Truly, this is the one thing that people from your country and people from my country agree on. They say, That refugee girl is not one of us. That girl does not belong. That girl is a halfling, a child of an unnatural mating, an unfamiliar face in the moon.”

Human variability is immense. We see and hear in varying degrees, our limbs are of different lengths and strengths, our minds process information differently, we communicate using different methods and speeds, we move from place to place via diverse methods, and our eye colors are not the same. Some of us can soothe children, some have spiritual insight, and some discern the emotions of others with astounding skill. Which bodily and mental variabilities are considered inconsequential, which are charming, and which are stigmatized, changes over time-and that is the history of disability.

In my experience, being a masked Autistic is eerily similar to being in the closet about being gay or trans. It's a painful state of self-loathing and denial that warps your inner experience. Though it often feels like being "crazy," it's not actually an internal neurosis. It's caused by society's repeated, often violent insistence you are not who you say you are, and that any evidence to the contrary is shameful.

I want every Autistic person to feel the massive relief and sense of community I found by recognizing myself and beginning to unmask...We must demand the treatment we deserve, and cease living to placate those who have overlooked us.

By happily delving into our special interests and reveling in our Autistic capacity to hyperfocus, we can help retrain our brains to see our neurotype as a source of beauty rather than a mark of shame.

When a masked Autistic person lacks self-knowledge or any kind of broad social acceptance, they are often forced to conceive of themselves as compartmentalized, inconsistent parts.

Masking is a state of exclusion forced onto us from the outside...We only get the opportunity to take our masks off when we realize other ways of being exist.