Nature gropes and blunders and performs the crudest acts. There is no steady advance upward. There is no design.

Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives - we are each of us unique.

The power of music to integrate and cure. . . is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest nonchemical medication.

I often feel that life is about to begin, only to realize it is almost over.

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.

I think the brain is a dynamic system in which some parts control or suppress other parts. And if perhaps one has damage in one of the controlling or suppressing areas, then you may have the emergence or eruption of something, whether it is a seizure, a criminal trait - - or even a sudden musical passion.

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'.