301 Quotes by Oliver Sacks

The users of a language, above all, will tend to a naive realism, to see their language as a reflection of reality, not as a construct.

I often dream... of my parents and of my former patients – all long gone but loved and important in my life.

Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional.

Characteristic of such affective equivalents is their brevity – manic-depressive cycles, as generally understood, occupy several weeks, and frequently longer. Monthly.

Many patients may confess that they feel “strange” or “confused” during a migraine aura, that they are clumsy in their movements, or that they would not drive at such a time. In short, they may be aware of something the matter in addition to the scintillating scotoma, paraesthesiae, etc., something so unprecedented in their experience, so difficult to describe, that it is often avoided or omitted when speaking of their complaints. Great.

Visual illusions, too, fascinated me; they showed how intellectual understanding, insight, and even common sense were powerless against the force of perceptual distortions. Gibson’s inverting glasses showed the power of the mind to rectify optical distortions, where visual illusions showed its inability to correct perceptual ones.

I think there is no culture in which music is not very important and central. That’s why I think of us as a sort of musical species.

If God, or the eternal order, was revealed to Dostoievski in seizures, why should not other organic conditions serve as ‘portals’ to the beyond or the unknown?

Of course, the brain is a machine and a computer – everything in classical neurology is correct. But our mental processes, which constitute our being and life, are not just abstract and mechanical, but personal, as well – and, as such, involve not just classifying and categorising, but continual judging and feeling also.