What would happen if the autism gene was eliminated from the gene pool? You would have a bunch of people standing around in a cave, chatting and socializing and not getting anything done.

If I did not have my work, I would not have any life.

I'm a big believer in getting kids involved in things where there's a shared interest because that's where they can have friends.

What parents and teachers and caregivers did with me that actually worked and a lot of that was the old fashion 50s upbringing. They just gave the instruction when I did something wrong - life was more structured. So basically it's [my work] based on experiences with me that worked and it was teachers and parents that made me have those experiences.

Engineering is easy - it's the people problems that are hard.

One of the things I want to do is be a decent role model. I've got a lot of emails and stuff from children. They look up to me. Kids get different labels and things like that and I want those kids to succeed.

People talk about curing autism. But if you got rid of all those traits, who's going to make the next computer?