A Quote by Temple Grandin

I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream. — © Temple Grandin
I can remember the frustration of not being able to talk. I knew what I wanted to say, but I could not get the words out, so I would just scream.
Language just gradually came in, one or two stressed words a time. Before then, I would just scream. I couldn't talk. I couldn't get my words out. So the only way I could tell someone what I wanted was to scream. If I didn't want to wear a hat, the only way I knew to communicate was screaming and throwing it on the floor.
I remember when I was a kid, every time the Beatles were on the radio, my dad would say he'd give me a dollar if I could tell him what band it was. So by the time I was about nine, I knew to just say 'The Beatles,' and I'd get a dollar out of it.
I did know that I could do scream very well. When I was in high school, I got a very strange job one Halloween filming screams for a radio station. I would just go into a soundstage and scream and scream and scream, and everybody would put on ear plugs, so I had an inkling.
I knew I wasn't soft. I knew I could play on this level and I knew that being in the paint was just a physical position that I wasn't strong enough for. I wanted to get myself strong enough where I could be dominant down there.
In Indiana, I knew the offense in and out. I knew spacing; I knew personnel. I knew the offense, how coach wanted to play me. So when I just wanted to take over and control the game, I could.
I knew I wanted to be an actor, and I didn't necessarily need or want to be famous or a celebrity actor. But I wanted to be somewhere where there would be no ceiling on what I could accomplish, and I felt like if I stayed in St. Louis I might have a really great regional theater career or something, but that I wasn't going to be able to get much further than that. And it felt like New York and L.A. were the two places where you could end up being a TV star or you could end up doing regional theater, which would have been fine as well.
I don't want to sound creepy, but I remember when I couldn't really talk. I was looking at the television and my mother just moved one of the curtains, so the sun started to hit the television, and I couldn't see the television anymore. I started crying. I wasn't able to find the words to say, "I can't see this anymore, please do something about it." I remember crying and not knowing exactly how to express myself; not because it was painful, or that I was too upset, but because there were no words. As human beings, sometimes we just cry when we don't know how to say something.
My mom made me read a ton of books, so I got good at words and understood the English language. So when I started rapping, words were something I knew. I learned how to manipulate them so that I could say whatever I wanted to say.
Marvin Gaye said there's a song inside of me and I can't get it out. And I know it's in there, and I can feel that it's in there, and I can't get it out. There's so much that I want to say, and I haven't been able to figure out how to say it in my art. I can only say it in ham-fisted, clumsy, nonpoetic ways, and I'm trying to figure out how to talk about life and talk about love and talk about pain and trials and tribulation in an artistic form.
I always knew that I wanted to work and I knew I wanted to be a singer and an actor. I knew that every choice I made would help me get to that point. So the better the choices I made, the more of a chance I would have to get to where I wanted to be.
I would say probably not being able to do what I want to do and not being completely fulfilled and happy. I don't know how that would manifest itself in a mirror. It's just that feeling of not being satisfied with my life would be the worst thing that could ever happen to me.
I'd get kicked out of buildings all day long, people would rip up my business card in my face. It's a humbling business to be in. But I knew I could sell and I knew I wanted to sell something I had created. I cut the feet out of those pantyhose and I knew I was on to something. This was it.
September knew a number of curse words, most of which she heard the girls at school saying in the bathrooms, in hushed voices, as if the words could make things happen just by being spoken, as if they were fairy words, and had to be handled just so.
I find that with fantasy, you lose yourself in it a lot. It's great to be able to go into a dark theater or turn off the lights in your house and just get sucked into this world. I remember watching Star Wars when I was a little kid when they did the re-release of all the originals. I couldn't even read yet but my uncle took me and he would read me the opening as the words were coming up on the screen. I just remember being so sucked into that and thinking, "I want to be Luke Skywalker."
I volunteered at UCLA's occupational therapy ward, where there are lots of kids with autism and emotional problems. I just wanted to prove to myself that I could not break down and cry at everything, and that I could just help somebody else. The one thing I really remember was that when we would take them out of the hospital for a walk around campus, they would freak out the most when we were waiting for the elevator. I remember the guy at the elevator said to himself, "Transitions are the hardest." And I said to myself, "Transitions are always the hardest."
I opened my mouth wide one time to see if the words I was thinking would fall out, but they wouldn’t. If words don’t want to come out, they don’t. I don’t understand when people say things and then they say, I didn’t mean to say that. Words don’t just fall out. You have to push them out. And sometimes, you can’t push them out, even if you want to.
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