Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
It really is a very odd business that all of us, to varying degrees, have music in our heads. — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
Music is...a fundamental way of expressing our humanity - and it is often our best medicine. — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
I suspect that music has qualities both of speech and writing - partly built in, partly individually constructed - and this goes… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
In terms of brain development, musical performance is every bit as important educationally as reading or writing. — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
The power of music to integrate and cure. . . is quite fundamental. It is the profoundest nonchemical medication. — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
I think there is no culture in which music is not very important and central. That's why I think of us as… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
The power of music, whether joyous or cathartic must steal on one unawares, come spontaneously as a blessing or a grace-- — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
The power of music and the plasticity of the brain go together very strikingly, especially in young people. — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
The past which is not recoverable in any other way is embedded, as if in amber, in the music, and people can… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
It seems that the brain always has to be active, and if the auditory parts of the brain are not getting sufficient… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
The rhythm of music is very, very important for people with Parkinson's. But it's also very important with other sorts of patients,… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
I regard music therapy as a tool of great power in many neurological disorders -- Parkinson's and Alzheimer's -- because of its… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
The same areas which are active in listening to music are also active when you imagine music, and this includes the motor… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
Music, uniquely among the arts, is both completely abstract and profoundly emotional. It has no power to represent anything particular or external,… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
There is no one part of the brain which recognizes or responds emotionally to music. Instead, there are many different parts responding… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
The power of music, narrative and drama is of the greatest practical and theoretical importance. ... We see how the retarded, unable… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
“What an odd thing it is to see an entire species -- billions of people -- playing with, listening to meaningless tonal… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
There are, of course, inherent tendencies to repetition in music itself. Our poetry, our ballads, our songs are full of repetition; nursery… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
“The power of music, narrative and drama is of the greatest practical and theoretical importance. One may see this even in the… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
“At the end of our visit, Fleisher agreed to play something on my piano, a beautiful old 1894 Bechstein concert grand that… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
Music can move us to the heights or depths of emotion. It can persuade us to buy something, or remind us of… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
Music originally had a social function. You were in church, in a concert hall, a marching band; you were dancing. I'm concerned… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
Although I think it is wonderful to have the whole world of music available in something that small and to have it… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
If a man with a dog sits quietly enjoying music and smiling, his dog might sit down beside him and smile, too.… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
Darwin speculated that “music tones and rhythms were used by our half-human ancestors, during the season of courtship, when animals of all… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share Image
“The feelings are similar, in some ways, to those one has in Rome or Athens, but quite different in other ways, because this culture… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
But the saddest difference between them was that Zazetsky, as Luria said, 'fought to regain his lost faculties with the indomitable tenacity of the… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
Music can lift us out of depression or move us to tears - it is a remedy, a tonic, orange juice for the ears. — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
“We have five senses in which we glory and which we recognise and celebrate, senses that constitute the sensible world for us. But there… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
“But it must be said from the outset that a disease is never a mere loss or excess— that there is always a reaction,… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
There is no one part of the brain which recognizes or responds emotionally to music. Instead, there are many different parts responding to different… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
I think there is no culture in which music is not very important and central. That's why I think of us as a sort… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
Who cared if there was really any Being to pray to? What mattered was the sense of giving thanks and praise, the feeling of… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
“unconscious motives may sometimes ally themselves to physiological propensities, of how one cannot abstract an ailment or its treatment from the whole pattern, the… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
“We have, each of us, a life-story, an inner narrative — whose continuity, whose sense, is our lives. It might be said that each… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
I regard music therapy as a tool of great power in many neurological disorders -- Parkinson's and Alzheimer's -- because of its unique capacity… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
Psychotic hallucinations, whether they are visual or vocal, they address you. They accuse you. They seduce you. They humiliate you. They jeer at you.… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
Much more of the brain is devoted to movement than to language. Language is only a little thing sitting on top of this huge… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
About 10 percent of the hearing impaired get musical hallucinations, and about 10 percent of the visually impaired get visual hallucinations. — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
The rhythm of music is very, very important for people with Parkinson's. But it's also very important with other sorts of patients, such as… — Oliver Sacks Copy Share
