Dr. Sayer Quotes in Awakenings (1990)

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!

Dr. Sayer: I'm sorry, if you were right, I would agree with you.

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.

Dr. Sayer: [in job interview] It was an immense project. I was to extract 1 decagram of myelin from 4 tons of earth worms.

Dr. Sullivan: Really!

Dr. Sayer: Yes. I was on the project for 5 years. I was the only one who believed in it. Everyone else said it couldn't be done.

Dr. Kaufman: It can't.

Dr. Sayer: I know that now. I proved it.

Dr. Peter Ingham: Most died during the acute stage of the illness, during a sleep so deep they couldn't be roused. A sleep that in most cases lasted several months. Those who survived, who awoke, seemed fine, as though nothing had happened. Years went by - five, ten, fifteen - before anyone suspected they were not well... they were not. I began to see them in the early 1930's - old people brought in by their children, young people brought in by their parents - all of them complaining they weren't themselves anymore. They'd grown distant, aloof, anti-social, they daydreamed at the dinner table. I referred them to psychiatrists. Before long they were being referred back to me. They could no longer dress themselves or feed themselves. They could no longer speak in most cases. Families went mad. People who were normal, were now elsewhere.

Dr. Sayer: What's it like to be them? What are they thinking?

Dr. Peter Ingham: They're not. The virus didn't spare the higher faculties.

Dr. Sayer: We know what for a fact?

Dr. Peter Ingham: Yes.

Dr. Sayer: Because?

Dr. Peter Ingham: Because the alternative is unthinkable.

Dr. Sayer: 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.

Mrs. Lowe: My son is in pain! Please, stop this!

Dr. Sayer: He's fighting, Mrs. Lowe.

Mrs. Lowe: He's losing.

Dr. Sayer: Where are my glasses?

Eleanor: They're on your face.

Dr. Sayer: You'd think at a certain point all these atypical somethings would amount to a typical something.

Nurse Beth: Dr. Sayer

Dr. Sayer: What is it?

Nurse Beth: It's a fucking miracle

Dr. Sayer: His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. It seems to him there are a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world. As he paces in cramped circles, over and over, the movement of his powerful soft strides is like a ritual dance around a center in which a mighty will stands paralyzed. Only at times, the curtain of the pupils lifts, quietly - . An image enters in, rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles, plunges into the heart and is gone.

[last lines]

Dr. Sayer: Let's begin.

Dr. Sayer: I would like to put the rest of the group on the drug. I realize this might be somewhat expensive.

Dr. Kaufman: When you say "expensive" do you have any idea how much money you're talking about?

Dr. Sayer: Yes, I talked to Ray. I have an estimate, um... The pharmacist says to put all others on the same dosage as Mr. Lowe would be, um, 12,000.

Dr. Kaufman: How much?

Dr. Sayer: $12,000.

Dr. Kaufman: A month?

Dr. Sayer: Yes.

Dr. Kaufman: I can't go before the board with that, doctor.

Dr. Sayer: I was thinking of speaking directly to the patrons.

Dr. Kaufman: The few patrons this hospital has already given what they can.

Dr. Sayer: We'll have to convince them to give more than they're accustomed to giving. Perhaps if they see Mr. Lowe.

Dr. Kaufman: I think you overestimate the effect that Mr. Lower has on people, doctor. We're talking about money.