Between rounds of speed chess I read enough of a programming manual to teach myself to write programs on the school's DEC mainframe in the language Basic.

The postdoc explained to me how to distinguish different sorts of particles on the basis of the amounts of energy they deposited in various sorts of detectors, spark chambers, calorimeters, what have you.

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?

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.

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

Just before my final year of high school, my brother, sister and I moved with my mother to San Francisco.

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