On the Move: A Life

by Oliver Sacks

We are all creatures of our upbringings, our cultures, our times.

“My chosen profession!” I exclaimed bitterly. “Others chose it for me. Now I want only to wander and write.

These and a host of other memories of your vital personality will always remain with us. When we contemplate this large empty house, we feel a wrench at our heart and a deep sense of loss. We realize nevertheless that you have to make your way in the world, and with you must rest the ultimate decision! —

felt I needed to go to a hard, real place, a place where I could devote myself to work and perhaps discover or create a real identity, a voice of my own.

I can get waylaid by tangential thoughts and associations in mid-sentence,

But it was not easy to believe that anyone cared for me; I sometimes failed to realize, I think, how much my parents cared for me. It is only now, reading the letters they wrote to me when I came to America fifty years ago, that I see how deeply they did care.