There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate - the genetic and neural fate - of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death.
Oliver SacksWe now know that memories are not fixed or frozen, like Proust's jars of preserves in a larder, but are transformed, disassembled, reassembled, and recategorized with every act of recollection.
Oliver SacksI am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions.
Oliver SacksSome 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 year old godson, now in a stage of primal antinomianism and anarchy)
Oliver SacksMusic can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear.
Oliver SacksI had never thought about what it might mean to be deaf, to be deprived of language, or to have a remarkable language (and community and culture) of oneโs own. Up to this point, I had mostly thought and written about the problems of individualsโhere I was to encounter an entire community.
Oliver Sacks