Muscular dystrophy ... was never seen until Duchenne described it in the 1850s. By 1860, after his original description, many hundreds of cases had been recognised and described, so much so that Charcot said: 'How is it that a disease so common, so widespread, and so recognisable at a glance - a disease which has doubtless always existed - how is it that it is recognised only now? Why did we need M. Duchenne to open our eyes?'

Fascinating, Doidge's book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.

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 traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers.

Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.

There is among doctors, in acute hospitals at least, a presumption of stupidity in their patients.

It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me.

Every act of perception, is to some degree an act of creation, and every act of memory is to some degree an act of imagination.