Most of my teachers probably found I made less trouble if they let me read.

Keep everything in perspective if you wish to be happy. For example... Losing an arm is more an inconvenience than a catastrophe. Things could be a lot worse so why not be grateful they aren't and thereby happy rather than sad?

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

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.

My freshman year of high school I joined the chess and math clubs.

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

My fellow students there were very smart, but the really novel thing was that they actually seemed to put a lot of effort into their school work. By the end of my first semester there, I began to get into that habit as well.