Oliver Sacks Dies at 82

Dr. Oliver Sacks died early Sunday morning at his home in New York City. He was 82. Knopf Doubleday, his publisher, said: “Oliver was a doctor, scientist, swimmer, teacher, and writer, and it was our joy and privilege to publish him. We all mourn his passing.” In “My Own Life”, an essay about learning of his terminal cancer, Sacks wrote: “I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers. Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.”