Quotes from Awakenings

“One must drop all presuppositions and dogmas and rules - for there only lead to stalemate or disaster; one must cease to regard all patients as replicas, and honor each one with individual reactions and propensities; and, in this way, with the patient as one's equal, one's co-explorer, not one's puppet, one may find therapeutic ways which are better than other ways, tactics which can be modified as occasion requires.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“As Sicknes is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sicknes, is solitude...Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itselfe.
-DONNE”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“We rationalize, we dissimilate, we pretend: we pretend that modern medicine is a rational science, all facts, no nonsense, and just what it seems. But we have only to tap its glossy veneer for it to split wide open, and reveal to us its roots and foundations, its old dark heart of metaphysics, mysticism, magic, and myth. Medicine is the oldest of the arts, and the oldest of the sciences: would one not expect it to spring from the deepest knowledge and feelings we have?”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“Diseases have a character of their own, but they also partake of our character; we have a character of our own, but we also partake of the world’s character: character is monadic or microcosmic, worlds within worlds within worlds, worlds which express worlds. The disease-the man-the world go together, and cannot be considered separately as things-in-themselves.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“from such abysses, from such severe sickness, one returns newborn, having shed one's skin … with merrier senses, with a second dangerous innocence in joy, more childlike and yet a hundred times subtler than one has ever been before.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“Other worlds, other lives, even though so different from our own, have the power of arousing the sympathetic imagination, of awakening an intense and often creative resonance in others.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“there is no necessary dilution of reality in representation; quite the opposite, if the representation has power. Reality is conferred, re-conferred, by every original representation.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“there is a world of difference between complexity and anarchy. The weather is complex, it is not anarchic.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“Ci ricordano che siamo sovrasviluppati in fatto di competenza meccanica, ma manchiamo di intelligenza, intuizione, consapevolezza biologiche; ed è questo, soprattutto, che dobbiamo riguadagnare, non solamente in medicina, ma nella scienza in generale.”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

“The structure of chaos is not static but dynamic;”
― Oliver Sacks, quote from Awakenings

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Popular quotes

“Greg accepted this with some incredulity, then his eyes widened at the ramifications of what she was saying. “Then, I’m your birthday gift?”
She nodded slowly, then tilted her head, and said, “That’s an odd smile. What are you thinking?”
Greg was thinking he was the luckiest son of a bitch alive as his mind automatically readjusted his earlier imaginings of a large, ugly woman stripping and climbing on top of him, to this woman doing so. He allowed himself to enjoy the fantasy for a moment, but then realized that his body was enjoying it way too much, a noticeable bulge was growing in his pants. He gave his head a shake.

-Gregg & Lissianna”
― Lynsay Sands, quote from A Quick Bite

“But Billy had done good deeds all the time. So had John Wayne Gacy, and dozens of others. It didn’t matter. It was all part of the disguise. Jazz realized that he couldn’t trust even his noblest impulses. They might not be genuine. They might just be camouflage.”
― Barry Lyga, quote from I Hunt Killers

“قال إيليا: لقد اعتدنا حياتنا ولم نعد نقرأ كلمات الرب.
سأله الصبي: أين تكتب هذه الكلمات؟
قال إيليا: في العالم من حولنا. فقط كن حساسا تجاه ما يحدث في حياتك ، وسوف تكتشف مكانها في كل لحظة من اليوم ، فهو يخفي كلماته ومشيئته. فاسع للقيام بما يطلبه منك ، فهذا وحده هو الدافع وراء وجودك في العالم.
قال الصبي: إذا اكتشفتها ، سوف أحفظها على ألواح الطين.
قال إيليا: لتفعل. لكن احفظها أولا في قلبك ، فهناك لن تحرق أو تدمر ، وسوف تحملها معك أينما ذهبت.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from The Fifth Mountain

“She had the simultaneous urge to run away from the approaching menace and run toward him and hold on for dear life. The problem, she realised, was that she had no idea whether he would catch her either way.”
― Elizabeth Hunter, quote from A Hidden Fire

“the problem with so secure a place was that it depended absolutely on secrecy which, once blown, became a fatal liability”
― Tom Clancy, quote from Without Remorse

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.