The remoteness of my parents from the schools, so unfashionable today, was often painful for me, but I learned early to deal with an outside and sometimes hard world.

I was also interested in chemistry, but my parents were not willing to buy me a chemistry set.

Experimental science is a craft and an art, and part of the art is knowing when to end a fruitless experiment. There is a danger of becoming obsessed with a fruitless experiment even if it goes nowhere.

Going to school and working for good marks, indeed working for very good marks, was a serious business.

My parents were determined to move into the middle class.

About 1900 my parents came to the United States as children from what was then the Polish area of Russia.

The remoteness of my parents from the schools, so unfashionable today, was often painful for me, but I learned early to deal with an outside and sometimes hard world.