Oliver Sacks

[on discovering that the study of modern chemistry was more theoretical than tactile] This seemed an awful prospect, for I - at least - needed to smell and touch and feel, to place myself, my senses in the middle of the perceptual world. I had dreamed of becoming a chemist, but the chemistry that really stirred me was the lovingly detailed, naturalistic, descriptive chemistry of the nineteenth century, not the new chemistry of the quantum age. Show less «

[interview in Newsweek magazine, 8/20/84] There is only one cardinal rule: One must always LISTEN to the patient. Show less «

[on his patient Spalding Gray] On several occasions he talked about what he called "a creative suicide". On one occasion, when he was being interviewed, he thought that the interview might be culminated with a "dramatic and creative suicide". I was at pains to say that he would be much more creative alive than dead. Show less «

[interview in Newsweek magazine, 8/20/84] If migraine patients have a common and legitimate second complaint besides their migraines, it is that they have not been listened to by physicians. Looked at, investigated, drugged, charged, but not listened to. Show less «