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.

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.

My parents regarded school teachers as higher beings, as did many immigrants.

Whatever the course, whether the course was boring or interesting to me, whether I was talented in mathematics or not talented in languages, my parents expected A's.

My parents were determined to move into the middle class.

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

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