Dr. Sayer
I'm not very good with people. I like them. I wish I could say I had more than a rudimentary understanding of them. Maybe if they were less unpredictable...
Played by Robin Williams 
Awakenings (1990) · 17 quotes
Awakenings (1990) · 17 quotes
Awkward turtles make weird babies.
More lines from Dr. Sayer
4 quotes Dr. Sayer
Dr. Sayer
I'm sorry, if you were right, I would agree with you.
Dr. Sayer
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
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.
Scenes with Dr. Sayer
5 scenes Dr. Sayer
[about the catatonic patients]
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 that for a fact?
Dr. Peter Ingham
Yes.
Dr. Sayer
Because?
Dr. Peter Ingham
Because the alternative is unthinkable.
Leonard Lowe
It's quiet.
Dr. Sayer
Yes, everybody's sleeping.
Leonard Lowe
I'm not asleep.
Dr. Sayer
[smiling]
No. You're awake.
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!
Mrs. Lowe
My son is in pain! Please, stop this!
Dr. Sayer
He's fighting, Mrs. Lowe.
Mrs. Lowe
He's losing.
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.
Other characters in Awakenings
More Robin Williams characters
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John Keating
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Sean Maguire
Ramon
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