Quote

I was always a good student, but I didn't read that much until I was 18 and I was working my way through college.

I feel I learned as much from fellow students as from the professors.

From my first year on the faculty, there was always so much more I wanted to impart to the students. I decided that, rather than waste the last day of class summarizing the semester, I'd spend my time talking about what I'd learned in life that was useful.

The advice I tell students is to think about the big problems. I mean, work on anything you can work on where you can make progress. But always keep in mind the big problems.

I've always maintained that I see myself as a student. There's always something to learn and be challenged by and hopefully grow from.

Never just run through a study because you happen to be familiar with it, but use it to see what you can get from it on this new day which has been granted you.

I'm visiting my high school. Every half year I do the exams, and then this year I'm going to graduate.

Students need to learn how to think critically, how to argue opposing ideas. It is important for them to learn how to think. You can always cook.

I read everything I could find in English - Twain, Henry James, Hemingway, really everything. And then after a while I started writing shorter pieces in English, and one of them got published in a literary magazine and that's how it got started. After that, graduate school didn't seem very important.