I guess they just took it for granted that that was what I was interested in and let nature take its course.

I used to think about how nice it would be to visit the planets. Of course, I didn't expect to see in my lifetime what has happened. I knew it would happen some day, but it came along faster than I at first thought.

When I was in the fourth grade, I became intensely interested in geography and I learned it well.

Young man, I am afraid you are wasting your time. If there were any more planets they would have been found long before this.

By the time I was in sixth grade I could bound every country in the world from memory.

That's the way I got along in life. I don't ever remember being particularly jealous of anybody, because I figured if I can't do it myself, I don't deserve to get it.

I guess the two things I was most interested in were telescopes and steam engines. My father was an engineer on a threshing rig steam engine and I loved the machinery.