Awakenings * Quotes

"What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and that is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. These are the things that matter. This is what we'd forgotten... the simplest things."

Dr. Sayer: "You told him I was a kind man. How kind is it to give life, only to take it away?"
Eleanor: "It's given to and taken away from all of us."
Dr. Sayer: "Why does that not comfort me?"
Eleanor: "Because you are a kind man. Because he's your friend."

Leonard Lowe: "We've got to tell everybody. We've got to remind them. We've got to remind them how good it is."
Dr. Sayer: "How good what is, Leonard?"
Leonard Lowe: "Read the newspaper. What does it say? All bad. It's all bad. People have forgotten what life is all about. They've forgotten what it is to be alive. They need to be reminded. They need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life!"

"I'm sorry, if you were right, I would agree with you."

Beth: "Miriam! I have to take your blood pressure!"
Miriam: "I've been sitting still for 25 years. You missed your chance."

"His gaze is from the passing of bars so exhausted, that it doesn't hold a thing anymore. For him, it's as if there were thousands of bars and behind the thousands of bars no world. The sure stride of lithe, powerful steps, that around the smallest of circles turns, is like a dance of pure energy about a center, in which a great will stands numbed. Only occasionally, without a sound, do the covers of the eyes slide open. An image rushes in, goes through the tensed silence of the frame... only to vanish, forever, in the heart."

Margaret: "Miriam, there's no easy way to tell you this, so - your husband - he was granted a divorce from you in 1952."
Miriam: "Oh, thank God!"