The Island of the Colorblind Quotes

“[S]ince memory . . . is never a simple recording or reproduction, but an active process of recategorization--of reconstruction, of imaginatiom determined by our own values and perspectives.”
― Oliver Sacks, The Island of the Colorblind

“megalomania, which goes with the monumental—the “wilde enormities of ancient magnanimity”—and all its attendant cruelties and sufferings; our boatman, Robin, had told us about the vicious overlords, the Saudeleurs, who had conquered Pohnpei and reigned in Nan Madol for many centuries, exacting an ever more murderous tribute of food and labor.”
― Oliver Sacks, The Island of the Colorblind

“If the students were taught about shuttle flights, plate tectonics and submarine volcanoes, they were also immersed in the traditional myths of their culture—the ancient story, for example, of how the island of Pohnpei had been built under the direction of a mystical octopus, Lidakika. (I was fascinated by this, for it was the only cephalopod creation myth I had ever heard.”
― Oliver Sacks, The Island of the Colorblind

“Might they indeed see us as peculiar, distracted by trivial or irrelevant aspects of the visual world, and insufficiently sensitive to its real visual essence?”
― Oliver Sacks, The Island of the Colorblind