Savant Syndrome Quotes

Part of the function of memory is to forget; the omni-retentive mind will break down and produce at best an idiot savant who can recite a telephone book, and at worst a person to whom every grudge and slight is as yesterday's. ~ Christopher Hitchens

We have so little in common, but we were both avid readers growing up. I read almost nonstop when I was little, and it saved me in school. I hated classes, hated teachers. They always wanted me to do things I didn't want to do. But because I was a reader, they knew I wasn't stupid, just different. They cut me slack. It got me through.
Reading couldn't help me make friends, though. I never got the hang of it. I would talk to kids, and over the years a handful of them even seemed to like me enough to ask to come over, but after that first visit to the house they never lasted. Ma told me what I did wrong but I could never manage to do it right. 'Act interested in what they say,' she said, but they never said anything interesting. 'Don't talk too much,' she said, but it never seemed like too much to me. So it wasn't like people threw tomatoes at me, or dipped my pigtails in inkwells, or stood up to move their desks away from mine, but I never really managed to make friends that I could keep.
And I got used to it. I got used to a lot of things. Writing extra papers to make up for falling short in class participation. Volunteering to do the planning and the typing up whenever we had group work assigned, because I knew I could never really work right with a group. And the coping always worked. Up until three years into college, where despite Ma's repeated demands to try harder, I stalled. Every semester since, I was always still trying to finish that last Oral Communicatio ~ Jael McHenry

A 45-year old looks a lot like a 25-year old who's been out all night. And feels just as good about having survived the experience. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

Jerusalem Syndrome is actually a rare psychological condition that occurs to some visitors to the Middle East. They get to Israel and just snap. ~ Marc Maron

I figure God's a creative guy. So when he comes down and lives with us in disguise, he can't help leaking creations here and there. Either that or he's an idiot. I haven't decided yet. Not a normal idiot- an idiot savant. God, idiot savant, what's the difference? ~ Michael S.A. Graziano

Be able to blow out a dinner candle without sending wax flying across the table. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

Anna: You really think he likes me?
Rashmi: Anna. He teases you all the time. It's classic boy-pulling-girl's-pigtail syndrome. And whenever anyone else even remotely does it, he always takes your side and tells them to shove it. ~ Stephanie Perkins

Having Down syndrome is like being born normal. I am just like you and you are just like me. We are all born in different ways, that is the way I can describe it. I have a normal life. ~ Chris Burke

The feature article made my holy-shit-o-meter blare like a banshee ~ J.A. Saare

All people, whether Aspie or neuro-typical are predisposed by their society to make guesses, jump to conclusions and then seek to defend those conclusions, regardless of logic or changing circumstance. This is sloppy, illogical thinking which may not hinder your life too much, under normal circumstances. But if you want to be a great detective, then such thinking will absolutely ruin your chances. ~ Alexei Maxim Russell

Skill is successfully walking a tightrope over Niagara Falls. Intelligence is not trying. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

The 'cleverness' syndrome has taken the place of melody. It's like everyone has come down with this terrible disease in jazz ... you are always expected to do your own material, which is a strange thing to do if you're a poor composer but a great player. ~ Keith Jarrett

I commit to most things I do in life, so I don't really have any serious regrets. But I'll say this: There are plenty of people that I wish I could un-meet. It's kind of an L.A. syndrome. ~ Sasha Grey

For a while, every smart and shy eccentric from Bobby Fischer to Bill Gate was hastily fitted with this label, and many were more or less believably retrofitted, including Isaac Newton, Edgar Allen Pie, Michelangelo, and Virginia Woolf. Newton had great trouble forming friendships and probably remained celibate. In Poe's poem Alone, he wrote that "All I lov'd - I lov'd alone." Michelangelo is said to have written "I have no friends of any sort and I don't want any." Woolf killed herself.
Asperger's disorder, once considered a sub-type of autism, was named after the Austrian pediatrician Hans Asperger, a pioneer, in the 1940s, in identifying and describing autism. Unlike other early researchers, according to the neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, Asperger felt that autistic people could have beneficial talents, especially what he called a "particular originality of thought" that was often beautiful and pure, unfiltered by culture of discretion, unafraid to grasp at extremely unconventional ideas. Nearly every autistic person that Sacks observed appeard happiest when alone. The word "autism" is derived from autos, the Greek word for "self."
"The cure for Asperger's syndrome is very simple," wrote Tony Attwood, a psychologist and Asperger's expert who lives in Australia. The solution is to leave the person alone. "You cannot have a social deficit when you are alone. You cannot have a communication problem when you are alone. All the diagnostic criteria dissolve in so ~ Michael Finkel

My sister learned she was a carrier for a recessive disease, Bloom syndrome, late in one of her pregnancies. I remember the panicked call and the weeks of worry as she and her husband awaited his test results; if he was also a carrier, this meant their daughter had a one in four chance of being born with the disorder. ~ Anne Wojcicki

The door opened just a crack, and a silver of Nathan appeared. I gave him a tentative smile. He shut the door in my face. ~ Alicia Thompson

All along I have the answer, it's written in my face, this is neither bad luck nor curse, but a show of God's grace. I may sometimes know why, I may sometimes feel doubt, but I'm not here to fit in, I was born to stand out. ~ Darius Andaya

I was in Toronto when they had a severe outbreak of SARS - you know, Severe Asian Racism Syndrome. I was in the airport and there were these big snowboarder guys and they had white masks around their necks, and as soon as they saw me, they put their masks on. So I went cough, cough, cough ... You wanna egg rorr? ~ Margaret Cho

We all behave like Maxwell's demon. Organisms organize. In everyday experience lies the reason sober physicists across two centuries kept this cartoon fantasy alive. We sort the mail, build sand castles, solve jigsaw puzzles, separate wheat from chaff, rearrange chess pieces, collect stamps, alphabetize books, create symmetry, compose sonnets and sonatas, and put our rooms in order, and all this we do requires no great energy, as long as we can apply intelligence. We propagate structure (not just we humans but we who are alive). We disturb the tendency toward equilibrium. It would be absurd to attempt a thermodynamic accounting for such processes, but it is not absurd to say we are reducing entropy, piece by piece. Bit by bit. The original demon, discerning one molecules at a time, distinguishing fast from slow, and operating his little gateway, is sometimes described as "superintelligent," but compared to a real organism it is an idiot savant. Not only do living things lessen the disorder in their environments; they are in themselves, their skeletons and their flesh, vesicles and membranes, shells and carapaces, leaves and blossoms, circulatory systems and metabolic pathways - miracles of pattern and structure. It sometimes seems as if curbing entropy is our quixotic purpose in the universe. ~ James Gleick

Salesman syndrome-When you go to buy something from a store you focus on getting best deal for yourself. You don't care how much profit your salesman is driving from you. But when you start thinking that even if you get the best deal your salesman had got better profits you will start loathing the salesman for no fault of his own. ~ Shiv Kumar

In the scientific world, the syndrome known as 'great man's disease' happens when a famous researcher in one field develops strong opinions about another field that he or she does not understand, such as a chemist who decides that he is an expert in medicine or a physicist who decides that he is an expert in cognitive science.
They have trouble accepting that they must go back to school before they can make pronouncements in a new field. ~ Paul Krugman

Worrying about money is one of the worst worries. It's like having locked-in syndrome, except you're still moving around and doing things. Your head burns. If other people are not having money problems, it pisses you off because it reminds you that you're limited in the ways you can express your agency in the world, and they aren't. Worrying about money is anger-inducing because it makes you think about time: how many dollars per hour, how much salary per year, how many years until retirement. Worrying about money forces you to do endless math in your head, and most people didn't like math in high school and they don't like it now. ~ Douglas Coupland

Rhiannon's Law #14: There is a reason the truth hurts. When you cease to feel the sting, it means you've stopped caring. And damn, wouldn't that be a total fucking waste? ~ J.A. Saare

It was another example of a phenomenon I call "the talking dog syndrome." Some people are still amazed that any woman (this includes Governors' wives, corporate CEOs, sports stars and rock singers) can hold her own under pressure and be articulate and knowledgeable. The dog can talk! ~ Hillary Rodham Clinton

I had eventually come to understand that friendship was a delicate, gradual process that mustn't be rushed or seized upon but allowed and encouraged to take its course over time. I pictured it as a butterfly, simultaneously beautiful and fragile, that once afloat belonged to the air and any attempt to grab at it would only destroy it. ~ Daniel Tammet

Working in an office with an array of electronic devices is like trying to get something done at home with half a dozen small children around. The calls for attention are constant. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

I get mail from people all over the world now from people who tell me that they didn't really understand Down syndrome, but because of me they have read about it and studied it and now they know a lot more about it. ~ Lauren Potter

A person who learns to juggle six balls will be more skilled than the person who never tries to juggle more than three. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

I am actually in poor health due to chronic fatigue and immune dysfunction syndrome, and my ability to work is greatly diminished right now, so I have to get better before I can start another big project. ~ Laura Hillenbrand

Spending waiting moments doing crossword puzzles or reading a book you brought yourself. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

The delusion that one's sexual pattern is The Only Right Way To Be is probably the single most common sexual-psychosis syndrome of this era, and it is virtually almost always the victim's fault. You cannot acquire this delusion by observing reality. ~ Spider Robinson

Okay," I said. His brow furrowed. "Okay what?" I licked my lips. "Kiss me," I said. ~ Alicia Thompson

And it's hard to hate someone once you understand them. ~ Lucy Christopher

They have a name for it these days. They have a name for everything these days. They call it Second Lifetime Syndrome, and it happens when a sorcerer watches her family and friends age and die around her. You'll latch on to other mages from that moment on, because what's the point of going through all that pain again? Valkyrie, there are some stark realities you have to face. You're going to look the way you do for the next eighty years. In two hundred years, you'll look twenty-five. You won't be able to form attachments to mortals. They will start to notice something is different about you when they're lined and saggy and you're still young and perky. You're going to have to say goodbye to your parents before they start to ask questions. ~ Derek Landy

From my clinical experience, I consider that children and adults with Asperger's Syndrome have a different, not defective, way of thinking. ~ Tony Attwood

Be in the habit of experimenting with your clothing so that you don't get stuck for life with a self-image developed over the course of high school. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

I walked out of the condos onto the flat lithesome beach this morning, and took a walk in my swimming trunks and no shirt on. And I thought that one natural effect of life is to cover you in a thin layer of . . . what? A film? A residue or skin of all the things you've done and been and said and erred at? I'm not sure. But you are under it, and for a long time, and only rarely do you know it, except that for some unexpected reason or opportunity you come out--for an hour or even a moment--and you suddenly feel pretty good. And in that magical instant you realize how long it's been since you felt just that way. Have you been ill, you ask. Is life itself an illness or a syndrome? Who knows? We've all felt that way, I'm confident, since there's no way that I could feel what hundreds of millions of other citizens haven't.

Only suddenly, then, you are out of it--that film, that skin of life--as when you were a kid. And you think: this must've been the way it was once in my life, though you didn't know it then, and don't really even remember it--a feeling of wind on your cheeks and your arms, of being released, let loose, of being the light-floater. And since that is not how it has been for a long time, you want, this time, to make it last, this glistening one moment, this cool air, this new living, so that you can preserve a feeling of it, inasmuch as when it comes again it may just be too late. You may just be too old. And in truth, of course, this may be the last time ~ Richard Ford

It is possible to tell things by a handshake. I like the "looking in the eye" syndrome. It conveys interest. I like the firm, though not bone crushing shake. The bone crusher is trying too hard to "macho it." The clammy or diffident handshake - fairly or unfairly - get me off to a bad start with a person. ~ George H. W. Bush

A commonality among factitious disorder is a lack in bonding personal relationships, providing alternative supports. Mr. McIlroy a skilled patient would receive over 200 hospital admissions in Britain subjecting himself to hundreds of painful treatments and procedures (Pallis & Bamji, 1979). The strength of compulsion of being viewed in the patient role becomes ever more obvious through the individual's willingness to submit to such rigors. Munchausen's syndrome may be rare yet continues to be a consistent disorder at the same time. The characteristics of Munchausen syndrome include physiological complaints presented by a dramatic patient. The patient exaggerates the illness exhibiting Pseudologia Fantastica. To minimize communication a patient will make use of hospital networks within different geographical locations. ~ Steven G. Carley

I believe that one can indeed work on two or more tasks at once, but in ways yet to be understood. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

I am one of those guys who could do the most emotional scene and crack a joke instantly. I'm lucky. I'm just like an idiot savant. I have one enormously enjoyable, pleasurable - for me - talent, which is being able to act. ~ James Woods

Have you ever noticed that when you must struggle to hear something, you close your eyes? ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

I have been sent many images by a Morgellons sufferer of extraordinary phenomena found in the bodies of those with the syndrome. Among them are hollow filaments, fibers, crystals, silica (often in hexagram form), even insect-like synthetic 'creature' remarkably similar to the one inserted into Neo's belly by agents in the Matrix movie....
Those tested who do not have visible symptoms of Morgellons have been found to be infested with fiber cultures grown from their saliva, body tissue, and urine.... Morgellons is proliferating because the takeover is proliferating and you will see this massive increase with the introduction of 5G which this body-invasion technology is designed to interact with. ~ David Icke

You'll be amazed how much you have in common with Edith Wharton (who struggled to feel worthy of success), Louisa May Alcott (who badly needed money), Madaleine L'Engle (who could have papered an entire house with her rejection letters) and other writers... ~ Nava Atlas

Vacation syndrome is dangerously seductive. You actually believe that this magical place you have come to allows you to be the contented, stress-free person you really are. There's a lot of vacation syndrome in Paris. ~ Walter Wells

Kids with Down syndrome are, by and large, quite affectionate and relatively guileless, and frequently, the attachments to them grow and deepen. And the meaning that parents find in it grows and deepens. ~ Andrew Solomon

Sometimes I suspect most of the media commentariat are suffering from Munchausen syndrome. ~ Rebekah Brooks

Being defeated is often a temporary condition. Giving up is what makes it permanent. ~ Marilyn Vos Savant

I have Tourettes and Aspergers, but Tourrets and Aspergers don't have me. You know, I'm doing what I can to suppress it and I don't let it take advantage of me. It's not who I am. You know, I'm James Durbin. Like I said in the beginning, I am here to show America who I am, and it is what it is. ~ James Durbin