It was good fortune to be a child during the Depression years and a youth during the war years.

A parent being called to the school because their child had misbehaved was as serious as a parent being called to the police station because their child had robbed a bank.

I learned quickly, as I tell my graduate students now, there are no answers in the back of the book when the equipment doesn't work or the measurements look strange.

I was also interested in chemistry, but my parents were not willing to buy me a chemistry set.

My parents were determined to move into the middle class.

I read everything: fiction, history, science, mathematics, biography, travel.

Whatever the course, whether the course was boring or interesting to me, whether I was talented in mathematics or not talented in languages, my parents expected A's.

There were two free public libraries within walking distance of my home; I remember taking six books home from every visit, the limit set by the library.

The remoteness of my parents from the schools, so unfashionable today, was often painful for me, but I learned early to deal with an outside and sometimes hard world.

About 1900 my parents came to the United States as children from what was then the Polish area of Russia.

The experimenter dealing with nature faces an outside and often hard world. Natures' curriculum cannot be changed.

If I'm afraid to fall then how will I ever fly?

Your outer world mirrors your inner world. How you view your outer world is how you view you, your inner world, the 'you' that needs your care, your attention, your compassion and your love.

Self confidence. Let's fight the demon that make us look smaller than we truly are. Your dream is worth it.

The bottom line is that our government is not intelligent about how it pursues the public interest, because its decisions are not informed decisions (and its interest is generally not the public's).

Doctors are allowed to practice medicine. What are you called when you are not practicing any more and finally know what your doing?

No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.

We are accustomed to use our eyes only with the memory of what other people before us have thought about the object we are looking at.

As a comic, you learn to use your voice because you don't have the benefit of visual things.

The real challenge is to remember to see clearly when everything's flying around us and we're wrapped up in our [emotional] wounds and traumas.

My big concern is me and what do I do now until the time of my death. That is valid. That is useful. That is beautiful. That is creative.