A J Parkinson Quotes & Sayings

I take the medication for myself so I can transact, not for anyone else. But I am aware that it is empowering for people to see what I do and, for the most part, people in the Parkinson's community are just really happy that Parkinson's is getting mentioned, and not in a pitying way. — Michael J. Fox

The smaller the function, the greater the management. — C. Northcote Parkinson

Men enter local politics solely as a result of being unhappily married. — C. Northcote Parkinson

When prescribing one of the drugs I take, my doctor warned me of a common side effect: exaggerated, intensely vivid dreams. To be honest, I've never really noticed the difference. I've always dreamt big. — Michael J. Fox

Studies by many labs have already started to identify specific circuits of neurons involved in normal cognitive function like memory and learning, as well as disease processes such as Parkinson's disease, depression, and autism. — Feng Zhang

It reassures parents that we are aware of the employment difficulty and that we are doing as much as we can to provide information to their sons and daughters, and to help them deal with the post-graduate reality. — Michael Parkinson

In fact, Parkinson's has made me a better person. A better husband, father and overall human being. — Michael J. Fox

Sure, it may be one step forward and two steps back, but after a time with Parkinson's, I've learned that what is important is making that step count; always looking up. — Michael J. Fox

One does not permit one's friends to be slandered in time of trouble. — Frances Parkinson Keyes

A lot of times, when you have a disability, one of the things you deal with is other people's projections of what your experience is and their fear about it, and not seeing the experience you're having. There's nothing horrifying about [Parkinson's disease] to me. It is what I deal with. It is my reality and my life, but it's not horrible. — Michael J. Fox

Just as Parkinson's isn't a big topic of conversation in my house, neither is my career. — Michael J. Fox

It can be also known as the Parkinson's law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." It means that if you give yourself 2 hours to do a work, it is likely that you will spend 2 hours. If you give yourself 3 hours for the same work, you will surely spend 3 hours. — Remy Roulier

It's Parkinson's. And if you talk about it again the way you just did, I'll be the one to take some of your teeth out the hard way. Understand? — Andrew Pyper

Perfection of planning is a symptom of decay. During a period of exciting discovery or progress, there is no time to plan the perfect headquarters. — C. Northcote Parkinson

The most important thing is to bring people with Parkinson's into our world and for the public to have a real understanding of it, as they're beginning to have with autism. — Helen Mirren

I regard music therapy as a tool of great power in many neurological disorders
Parkinson's and Alzheimer's
because of its unique capacity to organize or reorganize cerebral function when it has been damaged. — Oliver Sacks

James Parkinson. George Huntington. Robert Graves. John Down. Now this Lou Gehrig fellow of mine. How did men come to monopolize disease names too? — Khaled Hosseini

The rhythm of music is very, very important for people with Parkinson's. But it's also very important with other sorts of patients, such as patients with Tourette's syndrome. Music helps them bring their impulses and tics under control. There is even a whole percussion orchestra made up exclusively of Tourette's patients. — Oliver Sacks

To be brutally honest, for much of that time, I was the only person in the world with Parkinson's. Of course, I mean that in the abstract. I had become acutely aware of people around me who appears to have the symptoms of Parkinson's disease, but as long as they didn't identify with me, I was in no rush to identify with them. My situation allowed, if not complete denial, at least a thick padding of insulation. — Michael J. Fox

In addition to relieving patient suffering, research is needed to help reduce the enormous economic and social burdens posed by chronic diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases, cancer, heart disease, and stroke. — Ike Skelton

I figure there's no point in stressing about what's out of my control, and all I can do is make the best of what I've got. — Joel Parkinson

As much as Parkinson's is about movement, the end stage is being frozen. So the more I let that happen, the more I'm gonna be stuck within that and unable to reverse it. — Michael J. Fox

For the past 10 years I have had the interesting experience of observing the development of Parkinson's syndrome on myself. As a matter of fact, this condition does not come under my special medical interests or I would have had it solved long ago. ... The condition has its compensations: one is not yanked from interesting work to go to the jungles of Burma ... one avoids all kinds of deadly committee meetings, etc. — Fuller Albright

In politics people give you what they think you deserve and deny you what they think you want. — C. Northcote Parkinson

My life has been amazing. How many other ladies of 76 can say that the snapshot on their senior citizen's card was taken by Norman Parkinson? — Carmen Dell'Orefice

When any organizational entity expands beyond 21 members, the real power will be in some smaller body. — C. Northcote Parkinson

It is the busiest man who has time to spare. — C. Northcote Parkinson

No king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they did not know and could not know that there was such a law to discover. No Treasury official told Fleming to discover penicillin. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date ... — C. Northcote Parkinson

Scientists induced Parkinson's in rats by killing the dopamine cells in their basal ganglia, and then forced half of them to run on a treadmill twice a day in the ten days following the "onset" of the disease. Incredibly, the runners' dopamine levels stayed within normal ranges and their motor skills didn't deteriorate. In one study on people with Parkinson's, intensive activity improved motor ability as well as mood, and the positive effects lasted for at least six weeks after they stopped exercising. — John J. Ratey

As a practicing neurologist, I can tell you first hand that working with Parkinson's patients offers clinical challenges. But from an emotional perspective, this disease can border on overwhelming. — David Perlmutter

The first part of my life was to be an actor and maybe have some success at that. Then [it was time] to find somebody to be in a relationship with and have a life that way. Because of Parkinson's, I had to change: How can I be of service here? Is there something unique to my situation that I can use to help people? I did not have the wherewithal to invent that. It just happened in front of me and had me join in. — Michael J. Fox

I often say now I don't have any choice whether or not I have Parkinson's, but surrounding that non-choice is a million other choices that I can make. — Michael J. Fox

I didn't just want to be a poster boy and sign on to publicize somebody else's method of operations. If I was going to put myself out there, I wanted to make sure that it was to an end. So I got involved with this congressional hearing about Parkinson's being underfunded. — Michael J. Fox

I discovered that I was part of a Parkinson's community with similar experiences and similar questions that I'd been dealing with alone. — Michael J. Fox

I have referred to it as a gift--something for which others with this affliction have taken me to task. I was only speaking from my own experience, of course, but I stand partially corrected: if it is a gift, it's the gift that just keeps on taking.

Coping with relentless assault and the accumulating damage is not easy. Nobody would ever choose to have this visited upon them. Still, this unexpected crisis forced a fundamental life decision: adopt a siege mentality--or embark upon a journey. Whatever it was--courage? acceptance? wisdom?--that finally allowed me to go down the second road (after spending a few disastrous years on the first) was unquestionably a gift--and absent this neurophysiological catastrophe, I would never have opened it, or been so profoundly enriched. That's why I consider myself a lucky man. — Michael J. Fox

You have until midnight."
The silence swallowed them all again. Every head turned, every eye in the place seemed to have found Harry, to hold him frozen in the glare of thousands of invisible beams. Then a figure rose from the Slytherin table and he recognized Pansy Parkinson as she raised a shaking arm and screamed, "But he's there! Potter's there! Someone grab him!"
Before Harry could speak, there was a massive movement. The Gryffindors in front of him had risen and stood facing, not Harry, but the Slytherins. Then the Hufflepuffs stood, and almost at the same moment, the Ravenclaws, all of them with their backs to Harry, all of them looking toward Pansy instead, and Harry, awestruck and overwhelmed, saw wands emerging everywhere, pulled from beneath cloaks and from under sleeves. — J.K. Rowling

One of the great things about Parkinson's, in a superficial way, is it relieved me of vanity. I don't worry about what I look like, because it's literally out of my hands. But on a deeper level, it gives you a real humility, because you have to deal every day with the fact that you compromise. — Michael J. Fox

It's all about control. Control is illusory. No matter what university you go to, no matter what degree you hold, if your goal is to become master of your own destiny, you have more to learn. Parkinson's is a perfect metaphor for lack of control. Every unwanted movement in my hand or arm, every twitch that I cannot anticipate or arrest, is a reminder that even in the domain of my own being, I am not calling the shots. I tried to exert control by drinking myself to a place of indifference, which just exacerbated the sense of miserable hopelessness. — Michael J. Fox

So what I say about Tracy is this: Tracy's big challenge is not having a Parkinson's patient for a husband. It's having me for a husband. I happen to be a Parkinson's patient. — Michael J. Fox

You've probably read in People that I'm a nice guy - but when the doctor first told me I had Parkinson's, I wanted to kill him. — Michael J. Fox

I don't think [Parkinson's] is Gothic nastiness. There's nothing on the surface that's horrible about someone with a shaky hand. There's nothing horrible about someone in their life saying, "God, I'm really tired of this shaky hand thing" and me saying, "Me, too." That's our reality. We have no control over it. — Michael J. Fox

I have no choice about whether or not I have Parkinson's. I have nothing but choices about how I react to it. In those choices, there's freedom to do a lot of things in areas that I wouldn't have otherwise found myself in. — Michael J. Fox

I happen to be a Parkinson's patient. I'm not fearful of my condition or my future - but if someone is looking in my eyes for fear, then they see their own fear reflected back at them. — Michael J. Fox

If you asked my kids to describe me, they'd go through a whole list of words before even thinking about Parkinson's. And honestly, I don't think about it that much either. I talk about it because it's there, but it's not my totality. — Michael J. Fox

Almost instantly [after my announcement of Parkinson's], I saw the first couple of days the coverage was about, you know, "Fox's Parkinson's, blah, blah, blah." Then, two days after that, I saw the coverage turn. It started to become, "Can young people get Parkinson's?" All of a sudden, the conversation turned to become about that. And that was one of the first eye-opening things. — Michael J. Fox

I like to make people look as good as they'd like to look, and with luck, a shade better. — Norman Parkinson

When I was at school studying biology, I wanted to be a medical researcher. I did work experience at St Mary's Hospital in London, and I begged them to let me see the post mortems. So the first time I saw a naked male was at 15, when I saw an 89 year old man who had died of a brain hemorrhage. — Katherine Parkinson

Parkinson's Law: If you have only one letter to write, it will take all day to do it. If you have twenty letters to write, you'll get them done in one day. — John C. Maxwell

Administrators make work for each other so that they can multiply the number of their subordinates and enhance their prestige. — C. Northcote Parkinson

You have to prepare yourself physically as much as possible for a bad wipeout. — Joel Parkinson

Inflammation is the cornerstone of Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis - all of the neurodegenerative diseases are really predicated on inflammation. — David Perlmutter

This kind of pragmatism has become a hallmark of our psychological culture. In the mid-1990s, I described how it was commonplace for people to "cycle through" different ideas of the human mind as (to name only a few images) mechanism, spirit, chemistry, and vessel for the soul.14 These days, the cycling through intensifies. We are in much more direct contact with the machine side of mind. People are fitted with a computer chip to help with Parkinson's. They learn to see their minds as program and hardware. They take antidepressants prescribed by their psychotherapists, confident that the biochemical and oedipal self can be treated in one room. They look for signs of emotion in a brain scan. Old jokes about couples needing "chemistry" turn out not to be jokes at all. — Sherry Turkle

I stay away from big chunks of carbs and try to keep it lean, even when I'm competing. — Joel Parkinson

With Parkinson's, it's like you're in the middle of the street and you're stuck there in cement shoes and you know a bus is coming at you, but you don't know when. You think you can hear it rumbling, but you have a lot of time to think. And so you just don't live that moment of the bus hitting you until it happens. There's all kinds of room in that space. — Michael J. Fox

It seems that now is the time to take risks and strike. — Roger Parkinson

No creaking gates, no gothic towers, no shuttered windows. Yet for the past ten months this house has been the focus of an astonishing barrage of supernatural activity. — Michael Parkinson

I have been able to have a family and to dedicate quality time to my two sets of twins and my husband, as well as to serve on the boards of The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and Montefiore Medical Center. — Karen Finerman

I was brought up on choirs and brass bands. They formed the music of my childhood. When I heard the Treorchy Male Choir at the Royal Variety Performance it brought back such happy memories. You have your own eminent place in the history of British music. You stand for excellence in a great tradition and your work for charity is both an example and an inspiration. — Michael Parkinson

I drink coffee in the morning and a few cups throughout the day. Among coffee's health benefits are lower risk of Parkinson's, Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and dementia. — David H. Murdock

I'm very fond of piano players. — Michael Parkinson

In the foundation and development of a successful enterprise there must be a single-minded pursuit of financial profit. — C. Northcote Parkinson

Where life is colorful and varied, religion can be austere or unimportant. Where life is appallingly monotonous, religion must be emotional, dramatic and intense. Without the curry, boiled rice can be very dull. — C. Northcote Parkinson

I think we all get our own bag of hammers. We all get our own Parkinson's. We all have our own thing. I think that we'll look at it through the filter of that experience, and we'll say, "Yeah, I need to laugh at my stuff, too." — Michael J. Fox

Because I'd done 30 plays or so at Oxford, I thought that I was an actress anyway because that's what I was doing! — Katherine Parkinson

You can have a very bad end with Parkinson's, but on the other hand, you can be like me, because I'm lucky. I'm not having a bad end. — Margo MacDonald

No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson's. There's no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing. — Muhammad Ali

As soon as I get bored, I start missing the kids, so I don't let myself get bored. I just go surfing. — Joel Parkinson

I've become one of those women who thrusts her engagement finger out all the time. — Katherine Parkinson

God gave me Parkinson's syndrome to show me I'm not 'The Greatest' - he is. — Muhammad Ali

I always liked to chase the girls. Parkinson's stops all that. Now I might have a chance to go to heaven. — Muhammad Ali

It is what it is. But you have the power to turn it into an isn't so bad. — Karen Salmansohn

If there is a way to delay an important decision, the good bureaucracy, public or private, will find it. — C. Northcote Parkinson

Parkinson's dementia. Or was it something else? Only time would — Jane E. Mengesha

I apologize if there's a Parkinson's painter in the audience. I assume you do your best work in the morning. Probably gets abstract by noon. — Daniel Tosh

It's not so much about what you ask as what you don't ask. — Michael Parkinson

A photographer without a magazine behind him is like a farmer without fields. — Norman Parkinson

So much interviewing these days is about the presenter - I?m a clever boy, I?m going to be smart with people; or it?s a trivial - how do you like your eggs boiled? — Michael Parkinson

The onset of one religion can be resisted only by another. — C. Northcote Parkinson

For me personally it is because I get an awful amount of success and I don't think I deserve it and then I want to sabotage it. — Michael Parkinson

By the age of 13, I knew I wanted to be a comedian like Morecambe and Wise. So, obviously, I thought I'd better start practising my interviews for Parkinson. Don't look shocked - I wasn't the only teenager to imagine that. Though I may have been the only one to have chosen T'Pau as my walk-on music. — Miranda Hart