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My father also happened to be an intellectual, as learned, literate, informed, and curious as anyone I have known. Unobtrusively and casually, he was my wise and gentle teacher.

My father in his way influenced me and my sister to educate ourselves and to try to do things in life.

It was my father who taught me to value myself. He told me that I was uncommonly beautiful and that I was the most precious thing in his life.

My father was a very warm, gregarious, sociable person who had many interests. He lived his life very much in the present, full of activities and the next project. He had many hobbies. He was not given to retrospection.

My father was a classic intellectual. From him I learned devotion, and I also learned about the life of the mind.

My father paid for my education; then he made it clear that I was on my own.

My father was a successful real estate developer, and he was a very tough man but a good man. My father would always praise me. He always thought I was the smartest person.

My father is my biggest literary influence. Recently, I've been looking through his letters. He was in the National Guard when I was a child, and whenever he left, he would write to me. He wrote letters to me all through college, and we still correspond. His letters, and my mother's, are one of my life's treasures.

One of the greatest gifts my father gave me - unintentionally - was witnessing the courage with which he bore adversity. We had a bit of a rollercoaster life with some really challenging financial periods. He was always unshaken, completely tranquil, the same ebullient, laughing, jovial man.

My father loved people, children and pets.