My father was a professor of civil engineering at MIT, and my mother taught high school English.

Travel provided many interesting experiences, but perhaps the most useful lesson I learned was that I really had no proficiency for learning the thousands of characters of the written Chinese language.

As it was, I realized choosing the study of Chinese literature as my life's work was probably a mistake.

It was there I met my future wife, Celeste Landry, although our lives took us separate ways for many years and we were not to marry until more than ten years later.

Conversely, I came to realize that being good at something is hardly a reason to avoid doing it.

After a semester or so, my infatuation with computers burnt out as quickly as it had begun.

My head was always bubbling over with facts and it seems to me this had little to do with my paying close attention in school and more to do with my voracious and omnivorous reading habits.