My generation is on the way out, and each death I have felt as an abruption, a tearing away of part of myself. There will be no one like us when we are gone, but then there is no one like anyone else, ever. 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.
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Oliver Sacks
Neurologist and writer
United Kingdom · 1933–2015
Science and medicine
About
British neurologist who spent most of his career in New York, working with patients at Beth Abraham Hospital and later teaching at Columbia and NYU. His case histories, including Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, made clinical neurology a literary subject.
10 answers
I’ve had this concern all the time, but I can only hope that if one writes with appreciation and delicacy and respect, then it’s okay. I have to say that I’ve written a hundred times as much as I’ve published, because if there’s any thought of offense or embarrassment, then I will put the thing quietly away.
Recorded
Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement, 17 June 2000
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