I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life—achieving a sense of peace within oneself.

— Oliver Sacks

If the students were taught about shuttle flights, plate tectonics and submarine volcanoes, they were also immersed in the traditional myths of their culture—the ancient story, for example, of how the island of Phone had been built under the direction of a mystical octopus, Lidia. (I was fascinated by this, for it was the only cephalopod creation myth I had ever heard.

— Oliver Sacks

If we wish to know about a man, we ask 'what is his story--his real, inmost story?'--for each of us is a biography, a story. Each of us is a singular narrative, which is constructed, continually, unconsciously, by, through, and in us--through our perceptions, our feelings, our thoughts, our actions; and, not least, our discourse, our spoken narrations. Biologically, physiologically, we are not so different from each other; historically, as narratives--we are each of us unique.

— Oliver Sacks

I liked numbers because they were solid, invariant; they stood unmoved in a chaotic world. There was in numbers and their relation something absolute, certain, not to be questioned, beyond doubt.

— Oliver Sacks

In examining disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy and physiology and biology. In examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.

— Oliver Sacks

In this, then, lies their power of understanding--understanding, without words, what is authentic or inauthentic. Thus, it was the grimaces, the histrionics, the false gestures and, above all, the false tones and cadences of the voice, which rang false for those wordless but immensely sensitive patients. It was to these (for them) most glaring, even grotesque, incongruities and improprieties that my aphasic patients responded, undeceived and undeceivable by words. This is why they laughed at the President's speech.

— Oliver Sacks

I was on the shy side at school (one school report called me ‘diffident’) and Brae field had added a special timidity, but when I had a natural wonder... I lost all my diffidence, and freely approached others, all my fear forgotten.

— Oliver Sacks

Language, that most human invention, can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes.

— Oliver Sacks

Music evokes emotion and emotion can bring its memory.

— Oliver Sacks

Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external, but it has a unique power to express inner states or feelings. Music can pierce the heart directly; it needs no mediation.

— Oliver Sacks