My parents regarded school teachers as higher beings, as did many immigrants.

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.

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

Even those who do not, or cannot, avail themselves of a scientific education, choose to benefit from the technology that is made possible by the scientific education of others.

It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.

I'm afraid concerts spoil people for everyday life.

Once upon a time, there was a man as great as the gods…But even the great can tremble with fear.Even the great can fall

Insecure or homicidal: the adjectives don't bother me one bit.

Suffering by nature or chance never seems so painful as suffering inflicted on us by the arbitrary will of another.

The politics of fear has brought us everything we are afraid of, including the endless wars, the collapsing economy - all the rest.

The man who will live above his present circumstances, is in great danger of soon living beneath them; or as the Italian proverb says, "The man that lives by hope, will die by despair.

Lack of reciprocity ruins friendships, but makes love affairs exciting for a time.

By the fall a poison was handed to mankind through a woman [Eve], by the Redemption man was given salvation also through a woman [Mary].