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1 " Friendship is a weird sort of thing when you think about it. "
― Rachael Lucas , The State of Grace
2 " And I think for a moment, because people don't actually ask that very often. They tell me what they think I feel because they've read it in books, or they say incredible things like "autistic people have no sense of humour or imagination or empathy" when I'm standing right there beside them (and one day I'm going to point out that that is more than a little bit rude, not to mention Not Even True) or they -- even worse -- talk to me like I'm about five, and can't understand."It's like living with all your senses turned up to full volume all the time," I say. "And it's like living life in a different language, so you can't ever quite relax because even when you think you're fluent it's still using a different part of your brain so by the end of the day you're exhausted. "
3 " God, it’s hard work being a person sometimes. "
4 " The day you stop learning, my love, is the day you stop living. "
5 " Sometimes I think I’d like to retire from being a person and just quietly live under the kitchen table with a book and a packet of biscuits. "
6 " I’m the sort of person who thinks about doing things, then goes home and eats toast instead. "
7 " Sometimes I think I don’t even know who my own person is. "
8 " And I reach out, because for a moment it feels as if maybe everyone else doesn’t know the rules all that well, either, and I watch as my fingers lace between his, and I lean forward this time, and I kiss Gabe Kowalski. And this time I don’t think about anything. "
9 " that. And another part of me is angry because life is so complicated and nobody tells you anything and there’s so much of being human that’s about unspoken stuff "