Oliver Sacks: I think you used the term “defiance.” I think I may have both somehow accepted that I would be (a physician), but fought against the notion from an early age. But certainly, on the way, I very much wanted to be a physical scientist. A chemist first, and then I very much wanted to be a marine biologist. And then I very much wanted to be a physiologist. And rather belatedly and reluctantly I sort of became a physician. But when I did, I somehow realized it was what, in a way, I had been moving towards all the while. Yet I’m glad that I made the long journey of wonder through the physical sciences and biology. So I think it wasn’t an immediate sort of bleeding heart feeling, although obviously sympathy and empathy are there, but I think somehow a journey of wonder which finally came to people.