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

I used to believe there were people on Mars, and of course now we know there aren't. Mars held particular interest. I was curious what kind of beings they would look like.

I think the driving thing was curiosity about the universe. That fascinated me. I didn't think anything about being famous or anything like that, I was just interested in the concepts involved.

I realized that I would have some very tough sledding, and I was very discouraged because I didn't see much hope of getting into the field I wanted to get into with no college education.

You have to have hope. Otherwise, I don't think you could handle it. Of course, you have to have both luck and pluck to make it.

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

I doubt that the phenomenon was any terrestrial reflection, because... nothing of the kind has ever appeared before or since... I was so unprepared for such a strange sight that I was really petrified with astonishment.