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“The conclusion is that both emotional poverty and an aversion to company are not symptoms of autism but consequences of autism, its harsh lockdown on self-expression and society’s near-pristine ignorance about what’s happening inside autistic heads.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Yet for those people born onto the autistic spectrum, this unedited, unfiltered and scary-as-all-hell reality is home. The functions that genetics bestows on the rest of us—the “editors”—as a birthright, people with autism must spend their lives learning how to simulate. It is an intellectual and emotional task of Herculean, Sisyphean and Titanic proportions, and if the autistic people who undertake it aren’t heroes, then I don’t know what heroism is, never mind that the heroes have no choice. Sentience itself is not so much a fact to be taken for granted, but a brick-by-brick, self-built construct requiring constant maintenance. As if this wasn’t a tall enough order, people with autism must survive in an outside world where “special needs�� is playground slang for “retarded,�� where meltdowns and panic attacks are viewed as tantrums, where disability allowance claimants are assumed by many to be welfare scroungers, and where British foreign policy can be described as “autistic�� by a French minister. (M.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Visual schedules create such a strong impression on us that if a change occurs, we get flustered and panicky.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“People with autism obsess over certain things because we’d go crazy if we didn’t.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“My mind is forever swaying, this way and that. It’s not that I want to go running off, I just can’t help dashing away to whatever place enters my line of sight.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Here’s how I have to go about things: 1. I think about what I’m going to do. 2. I visualize how I’m going to do it. 3. I encourage myself to get going.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“So it would help us a great deal if you could just use our names first to get our attention, before you start talking to us.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“No, for people with autism, what we’re anxious about is that we’re causing trouble for the rest of you, or even getting on your nerves.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“in my opinion meals aren’t just about nutrition—meals are also about finding joy in life. Eating is living, and picky eaters should definitely be nudged toward trying different foods little by little.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“The reason why we look happy to your eyes while we're watching TV ads must be that at all other times we're less stable and calm, and our faces are blanker. Perhaps what you're getting when you look at us watching commercials on the TV is a brief glimpse of the Real Us.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“As autumn comes around the year's corner, the cicadas' lives come to an end. Human beings still have plenty of time in store, but we who have autism, who are semi-detached from the flow of time, we are always uneasy from sunrise to sunset. Just like cicadas, we cry out, we call out.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“More generally, for a person with autism, being touched by someone else means that the toucher is exercising control over the person’s body, which not even its owner can control properly. It’s as if we lose who we are. Think about it—that’s terrifying!”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“כשאני מוזג מים לכוס ונשפך לי קצת, אפילו טיפה, אני לא מסוגל לסבול את זה.

בטח קשה לכם להבין למה דבר כזה מאמלל אותי כל כך. ואפילו אני יודע שזה לא באמת עניין כזה חשוב. אבל קשה לי לשלוט ברגשות שלי.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“we’re trying to listen to the other person with all of our sense organs. When we’re fully focused on working out what the heck it is you’re saying, our sense of sight sort of zones out.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Finally, finally, I’ll calm down and come back to my-self. Then I see no sign of the tsunami attack-only the wreckage I’ve made. And when I see that, I hate myself. I just hate myself.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“I swear conversation is such hard work! To make myself understood, it’s like I have to speak in an unknown foreign language, every minute of every day.��
'The Reason I Jump' by Naoki Higashida”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Please handle and approach our behavioral issues with a strong faith that they are definitely going to pass, at some point in the future. When we are stopped from doing what we want, we may make a terrible song and dance about it, but in time we'll get used to the idea. And until we reach that point, we'd like you to stick with it, and stick with us.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“I’ve learned that every human being, with or without disabilities, needs to strive to do their best,”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“the thought that our lives are the source of other people’s unhappiness, that’s plain unbearable.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“A person who’s looking at a mountain far away doesn’t notice the prettiness of a dandelion in front of them.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“people with autism must survive in an outside world where “special needs�� is playground slang for “retarded,”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“A person who’s looking at a mountain far away doesn’t notice the prettiness of a dandelion in front of them. A person who’s looking at a dandelion in front of them doesn’t see the beauty of a mountain far away. To us, people’s voices are a bit like that. It’s very difficult for us to know someone’s there and that they’re talking to us, just by their voice. So it would help us a great deal if you could just use our names first to get our attention, before you start talking to us.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Aquatic life-forms came into bring and evolved, but why did they have to emerge onto dry land, and turn into human beings who chose to lead lives ruled by time? These are real mysteries to me.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“The three characters used for the word "autism" in Japanese signify "self," "shut" and "illness.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: the Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“People with autism react physically to feelings of happiness and sadness. So when something happens that affects me emotionally, my body seizes up as if struck by lightning.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Finally, finally, I’ll calm down and come back to myself. Then I see no sign of the tsunami attack—only the wreckage I’ve made. And when I see that, I hate myself. I just hate myself.”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“Can you imagine how your life would be if you couldn’t talk?”
― Naoki Higashida, The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism

“La verdadera humanidad no se demuestra atacando la autoestima de la otra persona.”
― Naoki Higashida, La razón por la que salto

“he aprendido que todo ser humano, con o sin discapacidades, tiene que hacer un esfuerzo para dar lo mejor de sí mismo, que si luchas por ser feliz, conseguirás ser feliz. Para nosotros, el autismo es la normalidad, así que ni siquiera podemos saber qué es lo que vosotros llamáis «normal».”
― Naoki Higashida, La razón por la que salto