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.

They wanted me to play more sports because they were acutely sensitive to their children being one hundred percent American, and they believed that all Americans played sports and loved sports.

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

I learned quickly, as I tell my graduate students now, there are no answers in the back of the book when the equipment doesn't work or the measurements look strange.

It was good fortune to be a child during the Depression years and a youth during the war years.

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.

I read everything: fiction, history, science, mathematics, biography, travel.