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Creativity involves the depth of a mind, and many, many depths of unconsciousness.

Oliver Sacks

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Oliver Sacks
Age: 82 †
Born: 1933
Born: July 9
Died: 2015
Died: August 30
Chemist
Neurologist
Physician Writer
Science Communicator
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Writer
Oliver Wolf Sacks
Depths
Involves
Depth
Creativity
Many
Mind
Unconsciousness

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Fascinating, Doidge's book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.
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I cannot pretend i am not without fear.
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At 11, I could say ‘I am sodium’ (Element 11), and now at 79, I am gold.
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It really is a very odd business that all of us, to varying degrees, have music in our heads.
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In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a sign of something awful happening to the brain, whereas in most cases theyre not.
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To be ourselves we must have ourselves – possess, if need be re-possess, our life-stories. We must “recollect” ourselves, recollect the inner drama, the narrative, of ourselves. A man needs such a narrative, a continuous inner narrative, to maintain his identity, his self.
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There is no one part of the brain which recognizes or responds emotionally to music. Instead, there are many different parts responding to different aspects of music: to pitch, to frequency, to timbre, to tonal intervals, to consonance, to dissonance, to rhythm, to melodic contour, to harmony.
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In terms of brain development, musical performance is every bit as important educationally as reading or writing.
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It is easy to recollect the good things of life, the times when one's heart rejoices and expands, when everything is enfolded in kindness and love it is easy to recollect the fineness of life-how noble one was, how generous one felt, what courage one showed in the face of adversity.
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Eccentricity is like having an accent. It's what other people have.
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The power of music, narrative and drama is of the greatest practical and theoretical importance. ... We see how the retarded, unable to perform fairly simple tasks involving perhaps four or five movements or procedures in sequence, can do these perfectly if they work to music.
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We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.
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Astounded—and indifferent—for he was a man who, in effect, had no ‘day before’.
Oliver Sacks
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Music is part of being human.
Oliver Sacks
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I feel I should be trying to complete my life, whatever completing a life means.
Oliver Sacks
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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
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I have often seen quite demented patients recognize and respond vividly to paintings and delight in the act of painting at a time when they are scarcely responsive, disoriented, and out of it.
Oliver Sacks
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Music 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 Sacks
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I have to live in the richest, deepest, most productive way I can
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It is up to me now to choose how to live out the months that remain to me.
Oliver Sacks