Enhancement not only allows the possibilities of a healthy fullness and exuberance, but of a rather ominous extravagance, aberration, monstrosity ... This danger is built into the very nature of growth and life. Growth can become over-growth, life 'hyper-life' ... The paradox of an illness which can present as wellness - as a wonderful feeling of health and well-being, and only later reveal its malignant potentials - is one of the chimaeras, tricks and ironies of nature.
Oliver SacksI am a man of vehement disposition, with violent enthusiasms, and extreme immoderation in all my passions.
Oliver SacksFascinating, Doidge's book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.
Oliver SacksI suspect that music has qualities both of speech and writing - partly built in, partly individually constructed - and this goes on all through one's life.
Oliver SacksFor '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'.
Oliver Sacks