Oliver Sacks Quotes

Hearing voices no one else can hear isn't a good sign, even in the wizarding world.

Psychotic hallucinations, whether they are visual or vocal, they address you. They accuse you. They seduce you. They humiliate you. They jeer at you. You interact with them.

Now, I'm no doctor, but I am on TV. And in my professional opinion, George W. Bush is a paranoid schizophrenic. ...

I was the most important person of the world, and people like the Pope would be just like enemies, who would try to put me down in some way or another, or the president. People are always selling the idea that people who have mental illness are suffering.

I hear voices in my mind and you're worried that you're the freak,” he laughed.

I have auditory hallucinations, I hear voices saying derogatory things, like I'm terrible and I'm going to die, and they're usually worse in the afternoon.

The thing about delirium is you think it's great, but it actually isn't.

If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.

Never get into an argument with a schizophrenic person and say, 'Who do you think you are?'

I've seen schizophrenics who are so hopeless, you couldn't cheer them, and their lives are miserable and they end up as suicides. That's not right.

Schizophrenia is hearing voices, not doing voices.

The schizophrenic has no sense of humor. His world is a constantly daunting, unfriendly place.

In general, people are afraid to acknowledge hallucinations because they immediately see them as a sign of something awful happening to the brain, whereas in most cases they're not.

A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.

Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm schizophrenic, and so am I.

I myself have suffered periodically from hearing voices at night when I'm trying to sleep.

Schizophrenia demons live in my head.

... the work of lunatics.

… the ravings of a maniac

... a paranoid person with delusions.

I think mental illness or madness can be an escape also. People don't develop a mental illness because they are in the happiest of situations, usually. One doctor observed that it was rare when people were rich to become schizophrenic. If they were poor or didn't have too much money, then it was more likely.

The most dangerous thing, when you have a serious mental illness, is convincing yourself that you don't have it. And you see it all the time. People get on medication, and they feel better, and they stop taking it. And some flirt with unreality on some levels. But it feels so convincing to them that it feels real.

I'm not a paranoid schizophrenic.

I've been imagining spikes in my head since I was 13 years old.

My mother became mentally unwell with schizophrenia when I was in my teens... We couldn't watch television because she thought the people on TV were sending her messages. She thought there were hidden cameras everywhere, so we had to have the curtains drawn.