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.

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

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?

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

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.

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

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