To live on a day-to-day basis is insufficient; we need to transcend, transport, escape; we need meaning, understanding, and explanation; we need to see over-all patterns in our lives. We need hope, the sense of a future; the freedom to get beyond ourselves...in states of mind that allow us to rise above our immediate surroundings and see the beauty and value of the world we live in.

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.

The power of music, narrative and drama is of the greatest practical and theoretical importance. ... We see how the retarded, unable to perform fairly simple tasks involving perhaps four or five movements or procedures in sequence, can do these perfectly if they work to music.

For 'wellness', naturally, is no cause for complaint - people relish it, they enjoy it, they are at the furthest pole from complaint. People complain of feeling ill - not well ... Thus, though a patient will scarcely complain of being 'very well', they may become suspicious if they feel 'too well'.

We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.

The past which is not recoverable in any other way is embedded, as if in amber, in the music, and people can regain a sense of identity.

A profound intriguing and compelling guide to the intricacies of the human brain.