Cahalan Brain Quotes & Sayings

I think I don't take myself too seriously. You know as far as, it's a fun life. I take my music serious, but I like to have fun. — Bruno Mars

The mind is like a circuit of
Christmas tree lights. When the
brain works well, all of the lights
twinkle brilliantly, and it's adaptable
enough that, often, even if one bulb
goes out, the rest will still shine on.
But depending on where the
damage is, sometimes that one
blown bulb can make the whole
strand go dark. — Susannah Cahalan

Along with the violent tonic-clonic seizure, it turned out I had also been experiencing complex partial seizures because of overstimulation in my temporal lobes, generally considered to be the most "ticklish" part of the brain. The temporal lobe houses the ancient structures of the hippocampus and the amygdala, the parts of the brain responsible for emotion and memory. The symptoms from this type of seizure can range from a "Christmas morning" feeling of euphoria to sexual arousal to religious experiences. — Susannah Cahalan

Music is one of the few things I'm relatively good at, one of the things I understand a little better than everything else. — Michael Angelakos

It was hard for me to believe. When recess was over I sat in class and thought about it. My mother had a hole and my father had a dong that shot juice. How could they have things like that and walk around as if everything was normal, and talk about things, and then do it and not tell anybody? — Charles Bukowski

Our minds have the incredible capacity to both alter the strength of connections among neurons, essentially rewiring them, and create entirely new pathways. (It makes a computer, which cannot create new hardware when its system crashes, seem fixed and helpless). — Susannah Cahalan

You can never solve a problem on the same level as the problem. — Emmet Fox

You can't kind of take away, you either do or you don't. If you kind of take away something you're a failure. — John Guare

I had lost confidence and a sense of self. Who am I? Am I a person who cowers in fear at the back of a spin class, avoiding everyone's gaze? This uncertainty about who I am, this confusion over where I truly was in the time line of my illness and recovery, was ultimately the deeper source of the shame. A part of my soul believed that I would never be myself, the carefree, confident Susannah, again. — Susannah Cahalan

Being disguised under the disfigurement of an ugly crucifixion and death, the Christ upon the cross is paradoxically the clearest revelation of who God is. — Hans Urs Von Balthasar

Darwin believed in intellectual progress, but he believed that it would come smoothly and harmoniously and happily and it would eventually cover the whole world. — James Moore

We have to learn to stand up for our interests. To seek purity is self-defeating and a stereotype in itself: women have to be pure, women are not concerned about money. — Gloria Steinem

Smile well and often, it makes people wonder what you've been up to. — Satchel Paige

There are surprising similarities between this diary and the diary I kept during junior high school. In each, there's a stunning lack of insight and curiosity about myself. In place of deep thought, there are dozens of passages dedicated to my body (weight gain in the recovery piece and lack of breasts in the junior high journal) and silly, petty issues of the day (hating hospital food versus fighting with frenemies). — Susannah Cahalan

His clothes - all black, all finely made - were cut close enough to his body that I could see how magnificent he was. As if he'd been molded from the night itself. — Sarah J. Maas

I need a little bass and I don't even need that crazy bass to break your face. I just want it to sound good when I have my favorite song. — Patrice O'Neal

When the brain is working to remember something, similar patterns of neurons fire as they did during the perception of the original event. These networks are linked, and each time we revisit them, they become stronger and more associated. But they need the proper retrieval cues
words, smells, images
for them to be brought back as memories — Susannah Cahalan

The brain is a monstrous, beautiful mess. — Susannah Cahalan