My father was a professor of civil engineering at MIT, and my mother taught high school English.

My freshman year of high school I joined the chess and math clubs.

Between rounds of speed chess I read enough of a programming manual to teach myself to write programs on the school's DEC mainframe in the language Basic.

There are relatively few experiments in atomic physics these days that don't involve the use of a laser.

It was there I met my future wife, Celeste Landry, although our lives took us separate ways for many years and we were not to marry until more than ten years later.

I certainly remember building model rockets. It was fun to watch the rocket blast into the air, suspenseful to wonder if the parachute would open to bring the rocket safely back.

With every passing year, BEC proves that it still has surprises left for us.

After a semester or so, my infatuation with computers burnt out as quickly as it had begun.

I was partly old-fashioned and partly modern.

As it was, I realized choosing the study of Chinese literature as my life's work was probably a mistake.

Conversely, I came to realize that being good at something is hardly a reason to avoid doing it.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

I want him to be happy. And I want you to be happy, too. Even if you can only find that happiness without me.

Our way of thinking creates good or bad outcomes.

You can lose your way anywhere.

Exaggeration is the kissing cousin of both truth and lie.

Riot – A popular entertainment given to the military by innocent bystanders.

After the Soviet collapse, Marxism is a relic, a pathetic anachronism reduced to its last redoubts: North Korea, Cuba, and the English departments of the more expensive American universities.

Learn to be satisfied. It is just as easy as being dissatisfied-and much more pleasant.

I have made the most important discovery of my career, the most important discovery of my life: It is only in the mysterious equations of love that any logic or reasons can be found.

There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.