Having to struggle gave me the chance to demonstrate strength of character.

Normal' is a dryer setting.

Having a mother who had been an aeronautical engineer convinced me that more things should be open to women.

What it boils down to is that parenting a child with autism is a difficult job; writing about it is far easier.

Having to struggle gave me the chance to demonstrate strength of character.

Even if a tamed wolf makes a good sheepdog, he will never understand how the sheep feel....You are most fortunate. For having been, as you thought, a coward, and helpless to fight - you know what that is like. You know what bitterness that feeling breeds - you know in your own heart what kind of evil it brings. And so you are most fit to fight it where it occurs.

Hard to be a physics major at Rice University if you have flunked calculus.