Quoting Movies
StarTrekker
Veteran

Joined: 22 Apr 2012
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,088
Location: Starship Voyager, somewhere in the Delta quadrant
I have this thing, where, it's not exactly echolalia because the things I'm repeating are actually relevant to the topic of conversation into which I'm inserting them at the time, and I'm saying them deliberately and not in a stimming kind of way, but I frequently repeat lines, dialogue, occasionally whole paragraphs from movies and TV shows. The most common one I draw from right now is The Big Bang Theory, though I'll repeat things from almost anything if the line seems relevant. Mostly I do it because it's a tangible example of what I or someone else is talking about, and it's easier to grasp if I put it in a different perspective, although sometimes when I'm alone, I'll just repeat random phrases to myself because I find them funny or appealing (which might be considered closer to echolalia). Just how common is this in the aspie community? I've read several fiction books in which the main character with AS did this too for one reason or another. Anybody else here do it?
_________________
"Survival is insufficient" - Seven of Nine
Diagnosed with ASD level 1 on the 10th of April, 2014
Rediagnosed with ASD level 2 on the 4th of May, 2019
Thanks to Olympiadis for my fantastic avatar!
Ha! Yes, I do it a lot. I in fact do it so much people get annoyed with me sometimes. I've done it for as long as I can remember. Most of the time the things I quote/repeat are relevant to the topic of conversation but sometimes they're random quotes (no matter if they're random or not they're from TV-series or movies). They're more often random when I'm alone but also in conversations with other people from time to time. I actually quote and repeat things more often than people think. They just don't know the quotes.
I'm beginning to think movie quotes is the Asperger's version of body language.
I've always used movie quotes, though I learned early on that most people don't understand what I'm saying when I use the quote. I'm refering to the whole situation that is exemplified by the quote, not the quote specificaly.
I think NT's do a similar with with emotive speach, they are refering to what caused the emotion, not the words specificaly.
I do it too, sometimes. Sometimes I do it as a reference, other times I do it for amusement and to make others laugh. One time, I was quoting a scene from Happy Gilmore where his ex-girlfriend walks out on him, and he talks to her through the intercom. My uncle and cousin were present at the time, and I remembered each word from the scene so well. My cousin thought I watched that movie too often.
_________________
Black cat on duty
I borrow words from books, movies, tv, and other people and my psychologist told me it was delayed echolalia. I'm not sure if there's a difference between your word-borrowing and mine, though...
Echolalic speech (immediate and delayed) can have a variety of functions beyond stimming. It's a misconception that echolalic words never fit the situation or never have deliberate communicative/interactive purpose. (Sometimes they don't, of course, but sometimes they do.)
Link to article and chart "Functional Categories of Delayed Echolalia": http://www.iidc.indiana.edu/?pageId=534
_________________
"Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." -- Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
Love transcends all.
I do this with quotes in general. Often times it annoys my NT friends because the quotes I use they either don't get the references or I do it in an attempt to understand a joke that appeared frequently in the past
_________________
I don't seek to be popular
I seek to be well-known
If we find a friendship that's forged without masks
Then I have done my job
I do this way too much.
I could converse all week (even while not isolating) in nothing except conversationally "appropriate" movie quotes that most often make sense (I think) even to people who haven't seen the movies.
And I don't watch that many movies.
What people REALLY hate is when I pre-quote a movie by five seconds while we're watching it I can often do this even after only seeing the movie once, even if it was years earlier.
Sometimes it's tough to keep my mouth closed...
I have a pathetic memory for everything else though.
Probably because I have a mind like a steel trap!: already sprung and rusted shut.
(that's not from a movie)
I thought I was the only one. I should have known better =)
_________________
(14.01.b) cogito ergo sum confusus
Just after watching TBBT... twice, since I liked it so much, my mind got often reminded of specific situations from the sitcom when something analogous happens IRL, and I may say something relevant about it, even if it's not a quote (i.e. "this is like what happened in TBBT...") - but this lasted for less than a month after stopping watching it (could you quote something even if you've watched it long ago?)
I do this all the time. Movies and TV. My wife understands this language. It's a way of comparing the present situation to the one in the well known movie.
My wife and I both liked the movie "Aliens" so we can quote little segments of it or even single words and convey a lot of meaning. "Mostly, " for example, referring to the little girl Newt saying "they mostly come at night--mostly" meaning a bad thing is coming that can't be stopped--or "gear down" meaning you've already driven the APC clear of the building and blown the transaxle, so you can ease of the accelerator...meaning whatever you are doing you're now going to far, and you already got your objective, so you can start to relax...
These things are a little situational, but nothing like echolalia at all--because they are precisely meaningful in context.
"The needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" - Ambassador Spock
I often requote this to individuals I am speaking with, specifically about what is logical in survival. There are times when this quote can be applied to other things, however, I generally keep it to one specific topic.
I am unsure as to how many quotes I have stated in the past, although I must say, it would be interesting to find out. Perhaps I should start writing them down in order to further catalog these events.
_________________
Writer. Author.
Precisely meaningful as opposed to what?
_________________
"Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." -- Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky
Love transcends all.
Precisely meaningful as opposed to what?
As opposed to not having any particular contextual meaning as in echolalia--which is, as I understand it, an automatic repetition of a word or phrase without any particular meaning in context.
Verdandi
Veteran

Joined: 7 Dec 2010
Age: 55
Gender: Female
Posts: 12,275
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
I could have written this paragraph, except I don't quote Big Bang Theory.
I've done this since childhood. Apparently I would reenact entire scenes from movies, although I no longer do that. I do, however, use movie and television quotes whenever possible.
I also have a tendency to repeat random phrases with no context, usually when I'm alone. For a long time, one phrase I'd repeat often was "it's about power" which is from the start of Buffy's sixth season. I don't use that one so much anymore, but I haven't stopped to keep track of what's replaced it.
References are amusing to an extent. I once heard a NT say "which one's the any key" in reference to the Simpsons. There's a more recent but less relevant example because it wasn't just repetition. The person actually said something along the lines "this is like that time in the Simpsons when...". In my opinion the latter example sounds more Aspie-ish than the first one. The person making the reference in the first example knows the show is iconic enough that most people will get it. He doesn't need to say every word of what he means exactly he just needs to say the phrase and people get it. The second example has the unnecessary precision and literalness of an Aspie.
Anyways, I think obsessively inserting relevant quotes into conversations could be something that Aspies do and NTs don't. The occasional reference on it's own seems normal to me. Doing it habitually might be something else entirely.
side note: I'm not even sure if literalness is a word but the wrongplanet spell checker isn't correcting me. I'm too lazy to look it up in a dictionary just for the sake of this post so I'll just assume the spell checker is right.
Similar Topics | |
---|---|
What are your most favorite movies? |
03 Jul 2025, 1:24 pm |
Is there any new autistic movies or tv shows? |
21 Jun 2025, 11:59 am |
(Railroad/Railway) Crossing Gates in TV and Movies |
12 Jul 2025, 6:17 am |