I don’t want my thoughts to die with me, I want to have done something. I’m not interested in power, or piles of money. I want to leave something behind. I want to make a positive contribution - know that my life has meaning.

Now there are a few things with a shelter - like with noise control, don't face dog runs facing each other that tends to encourage barking. The problem you've got is that the kind of materials that absorb noise are difficult to clean. One of the biggest problems in the design of animal shelters is that animals are barking and it's like the sound of a jet plane taking off.

If language naturally evolves to serve the needs of tiny rodents with tiny rodent brains, then what's unique about language isn't the brilliant humans who invented it to communicate high-level abstract thoughts. What's unique about language is that the creatures who develop it are highly vulnerable to being eaten.

I feel very strongly that we need to give beef cattle a really good life. When they go to slaughter, it needs to be painless.

Some children may need a behavioral approach, whereas other children may need a sensory approach.

When I was diagnosed, mothers were blamed for causing autism. There was no autism support. They'd put autistic kids in institutions. I had severe autism. But my mom wouldn't accept that. I was put in speech therapy. My mother was always pushing me to do stuff.

Animals are like autistic savants. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that animals might actually be autistic savants. Animals have special talents normal people don't, the same way autistic people have special talents normal people don't; and at least some animals have special forms of genius normal people don't, the same way some autistic savants have special forms of genius. I think most of the time animal genius probably happens for the same reason autistic genius does: a difference in the brain autistic people share with animals.