Naturally, I have compensated in my adult years by owning very large numbers of books.

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.

This was good training for research, because large parts of experimental work are sometimes boring or involve the use of skills in which one is not particularly gifted.

As Jews, their families left Russia to escape the poverty and the antisemitism.

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.

With practice, you build the road to accomplish your goals. Excellence lives in attention to detail. Give your all, all the time. Don't save anything for the walk home.

There are those who wrap themselves in flags and blow the tinny trumpet of patriotism as a means of fooling the people.

Your name?” I repeated, hoping it was my imagination that my voice faltered. “Call me Patch. I mean it. Call me

I . . . am small, like the wren, and my hair is bold like the chestnut burr; and my eyes like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves.

Watch your thoughts, they become words.

It is not the armed forces which can protect our democracy. It is the moral strength of democracy which alone can give any meaning to the efforts at military security.

Death is not a mystery; it is very simple and clear! It is the life which is the complex and the mystic one!

What really matters in a pencil is not its wooden exterior, but the graphite inside. So always pay attention to what is happening inside you.

What is that unforgettable line?

Pessimists calculate the odds. Optimists believe they can overcome them.