Verified Quotes
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Oliver Sacks, British neurologist and writer whose case histories turned patients back into people, gets quoted everywhere and sourced almost nowhere. The 8 quotes below are different: each one is checked word for word against the cited work, starting with Gratitude, not copied from aggregator sites that pass misattributions along. The source is named under every line, so you can trace each quote back to the page it came from.
Read Oliver Sacks's full profile and how they reason →2 verified quotes
On what actually holds a self together:
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.Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
On reclaiming a life story that others have edited:
To be ourselves we must have ourselves, possess, if need be repossess, our life stories.Oliver Sacks, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
5 verified quotes
On facing a terminal diagnosis without pretending bravery:
I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude.Oliver Sacks, Gratitude
On what counts as a life well used when time is short:
I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.Oliver Sacks, Gratitude
On taking stock of a life near its end:
I have loved and been loved. I have been given much and I have given something in return.Oliver Sacks, Gratitude
On deciding how to spend the time you have left:
It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me. I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can.Oliver Sacks, Gratitude
On prioritizing who and what matters most before it is too late:
I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength.Oliver Sacks, Gratitude
1 verified quote
On why a person turns to music instead of words:
Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional.Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia