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.
Oliver SacksMemory is dialogic and arises not only from direct experience but from the intercourse of many minds.
Oliver SacksMusic can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ear. But for many of my neurological patients, music is even more - it can provide access, even when no medication can, to movement, to speech, to life. For them, music is not a luxury, but a necessity.
Oliver SacksWe speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.
Oliver SacksThere 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 Sacks