#oliver sacks

[quotesfrommyreading]

This was the case with the B.s, the autistic family I had visited in California—the older son, like the parents, with Asperger’s syndrome, the younger with classical autism. When I first arrived at their house, the whole atmosphere was so “normal” that I wondered if I had been misinformed, or if I had not, perhaps, ended up at the wrong house, for there was nothing obviously “autistic” about them or it. It was only after I had settled down that I noticed the well-used trampoline, where the whole family, at times, likes to jump and flap their arms; the huge library of science fiction; the strange cartoons pinned to the bathroom wall; and the ludicrously explicit directions, pinned up in the kitchen, for cooking, laying the table, and washing up—suggesting that these had to be performed in a fixed, formulaic way (this, I learned later, was an autistic in-joke). Mrs. B. spoke of herself, at one point, as “bordering on normality,” but then made clear what such “bordering” meant: “We know the rules and conventions of the ‘normal,’ but there is no actual transit. You act normal, you learn the rules, and obey them, but . . .”

“You learn to ape human behavior,” her husband interpolated. “I still don’t understand what’s behind the social conventions. You observe the front—but . . .”

The B.s, then, had learned a front of normality, which was necessary, given their professional lives, their living in the suburbs and driving a car, their having a son in regular school, etc. But they had no illusions about themselves. They recognized their own autism, and they had recognized each other’s, at college, with a sense of such affinity and delight that it was inevitable they would marry. “It was as if we had known each other for a million years,” Mrs. B. said. While they were well aware of many of the problems of their autism, they had a respect for their differentness, even a pride. Indeed, in some autistic people this sense of radical and ineradicable differentness is so profound as to lead them to regard themselves, half-jokingly, almost as members of another species (“They beamed us down on the transporter together,” as the B.s liked to say), and to feel that autism, while it may be seen as a medical condition, and pathologized as a syndrome, must also be seen as a whole mode of being, a deeply different mode or identity, one that needs to be conscious (and proud) of itself.

  —  An Anthropologist on Mars (Oliver Sacks, 1993)

#oliver sacks #temple grandin #an anthropologist on mars #psychology #autism #disability #marriage #family #children #parenting #stimming

[mrmousetolliver]

Dr. Oliver Sacks / Neurologist / Naturalist / Historian / Writer

#gay #gay men #gay history #oliver sacks

[explore-blog]

Oliver Sacks on how chocolate cast its spell upon humanity, from biochemistry to culture.

#food #Oliver Sacks #chocolate #culture and society #science #science and technology

[julesofnature]

"In forty years of medical practice, I have found only two types of non-pharmaceutical 'therapy' to be vitally important for patients with chronic neurological diseases: music and gardens." -Oliver Sacks (July 9, 1933–August 30, 2015) explores in a lovely short essay titled “Why We Need Gardens,” found in Everything in Its Place: First Loves and Last Tales

#oliver sacks #gardens

[onioneyez]

Oliver Sacks for New Yorker Magazine, 2012

#Oliver sacks #he saw migraine auras too #ah the brain #I am in a beauty mood #I think I heard him read this somewhere #maybe radio lab? #also to switch to shop talk: anybody who uses a screen reader feel free to let me know if this makes more sense pasted as plain text than #in the alt description

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

"When people die, they cannot be replaced. They leave holes that cannot be filled, for it is the fate -- the genetic and neural fate -- of every human being to be a unique individual, to find his own path, to live his own life, to die his own death." -- Oliver Sacks

Make it a good one.

#Oliver Sacks #mortality #human mortality #individuality #religion is a mental illness

[nocturnal-milk-dud]

This description of migraine-havers has me in tears:

For they flee the light; the darkness soothes their disease; nor can they bear readily to look upon or hear anything pleasant...The patients are weary of life and wish to die.

I say "has me in tears" because this is completely true for me and would have accurately described me on Friday when I went to find the only room at work where I could make it as cold and dark and quiet as possible and where no one would find me. But it also makes it sound like I'm a fucking vampire

#books #migraine #oliver sacks #health

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, 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

[Philo Thoughts]

#quotes #mortality #Oliver Sacks #Philo Thoughts

[addictivecontradiction]

Awakenings, 1990

#biography #drama #awakenings #penny marshall #oliver sacks #steven zaillian #robert de niro #rainer maria rilke #silence

[quotesfrommyreading]

Everything is public now, potentially: one’s thoughts, one’s photos, one’s movements, one’s purchases. There is no privacy and apparently little desire for it in a world devoted to non-stop use of social media. Every minute, every second, has to be spent with one’s device clutched in one’s hand. Those trapped in this virtual world are never alone, never able to concentrate and appreciate in their own way, silently. They have given up, to a great extent, the amenities and achievements of civilization: solitude and leisure, the sanction to be oneself, truly absorbed, whether in contemplating a work of art, a scientific theory, a sunset, or the face of one’s beloved.

  —  The Machine Stops (Oliver Sacks)

#oliver sacks #technology #digital technology #computing #internet #social #privacy #sociology #psychology #philosophy #solitude #leisure #art

[wondermutt20]

"I wish for a world that views disability, mental or physical, not as a hindrance but as unique attributes that can be seen as powerful assets if given the right opportunities."

Oliver Sacks - 1933-2015 - British Neurologist

#quoteoftheday #quotes #quotesoftheday #quotes of tumblr #oliver sacks #british #neurology #england #united kingdom #disability pride month #disability pride #disabled #disabilties #disability #equality #equity #diversity #inclusion

[kafkasapartment]

#ai #tech #culture #chatgpt #prescient #reading #oliver sacks

[chrisengel]

„We speak not only to tell other people what we think, but to tell ourselves what we think. Speech is a part of thought.“ Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices

#speech #oliver sacks #seeing voices

[3amomen]

My favorite quotes from books

"People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had." A man called Ove by Fredrik Backman

"I wanted to be a cicada. I wanted to pull my skin off and leave it in the bushes and nobody would recognize me, not even my own mother." Bone and All by Camille DeAngelis

"English did not just burrow words from other languages; it was stuffed to the brim with foreign influences, a Frankenstein vernacular and Robin found it incredible, how this country, whose citizens prided themselves so much on being better than the rest of the world, could not make it through an afternoon tea without borrowed goods." Babel by R.F. Kuang

"if he has horns, who's to say he doesn't have hooves?" House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

" 'it's not gentle' he said to me. 'you can see it as whimsical, funny-be tempted to romanticize it- but tourette's comes from deep down in the nervous system and unconscious. It taps into the oldest, strongest feeling we have. Tourette's is like an epilepsy in the subcortex: when it takes over, there's just a thin line of control, a thin line of cortex, between you and it, between you and that raging storm, the blind force of the subcortex. One can see the charming things, the funny things, the creative side of tourette's but there's also a dark side, you fight it all your life." An Anthropologist on Mars by Oliver Sacks

"She swelled with self-indulgent anger, for indeed she saw she was on the verge of throwing a temper tantrum much in the same way her son tossed himself to the living room floor, kicking and clawing, injuring himself in the process, and then crying even harder- and she could not, she would not, stop it. It was easier blasting the anger out or turning the anger in, and she wasn't willing to keep it there any longer. She would not shred herself up inside, would not churn her guys into acid, would not grind her teeth in her sleep or cause her neck to go out, for the sake of being civil and mature and understanding and levelheaded." Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder

"Should you ever outrun the guilt within your past, sorceress, you will have to out run your soul. When it finds you again it will kill you."

Gardens of the moon by Steven Erikson

#favorite book quotes #book quotes #a man called ove #bones and all #babel rf kuang #nightbitch #house of leaves #gardens of the moon #An Anthropolgist on Mars #fredrik backman #Camille DeAngelis #Rachel Yoder #mark z. danielewski #steven erikson #oliver sacks

[julesofnature]

My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.

Oliver Sacks

#Oliver Sacks

[erosioni]

Robin Williams and Oliver Sacks having fun on the set of Awakenings, 1989. 

#robin williams #oliver sacks #80s #80s vintage #80s fashion #1980s style #80s aesthetic #80s icons #literature #1980s hollywood