Oliver Sacks

“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and...”

“To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient for human beings; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in...”

“We, as human beings, are landed with memories which have fallibilities, frailties, and imperfections - but also great flexibility and creativity. Confusion over sources or indifference to th...”

“Given her deafness, the auditory part of the brain, deprived of its usual input, had started to generate a spontaneous activity of its own, and this took the form of musical hallucinations,...”

“But the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the damned,' whereas Dr P. was not fighting, d...”

“There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery rhymes and the little chants and songs we use to t...”

“Some people with Tourette's have flinging tics- sudden, seemingly motiveless urges or compulsions to throw objects..... (I see somewhat similar flinging behaviors- though not tics- in my two...”

“When the neglect is severe, the patient may behave almost as if one half of the universe had abruptly ceased to exist in any meaningful form.... Patients with unilateral neglect behave not o...”

“Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbers.”

“I feel I should be trying to complete my life, whatever 'completing a life' means.”