Oliver Sacks - Sudden Quotes
4 Sourced Quotes
It came upon me sometime in my fifteenth year that I no longer woke up with sudden excitements— Today I will get the Clerici solution! Today I will read about Humphry Davy and electric fish! Today I will finally understand diamagnetism, perhaps! I no longer seemed to get these sudden illuminations, these epiphanies, these excitements which Flaubert (whom I was now reading) called erections of the mind. Erections of the body, yes, this was a new, exotic part of life—but those sudden raptures of the mind, those sudden landscapes of glory and illumination, seemed to have deserted or abandoned me. Or had I, in fact, abandoned them?Oliver Sacks
On one occasion—it was an oppressive Saturday in the tense summer of 1939—I decided to ride my tricycle up and down Exeter Road near the house, but there was a sudden downpour and I got completely soaked. [Aunt] Annie wagged a finger at me, and shook her heavy head: Riding on shabbas? You can't get away with it, she said. He sees everything, He is watching all the time! I disliked Saturdays from this time on, disliked God, too (or at least the vindictive, punitive God that Annie's warning had evoked) and developed an uncomfortable, anxious, watched feeling about Saturdays (which persists, a little, to this day).Oliver Sacks
