[Jazz musicians] feel comfortable with their clichés, you know.
My father was a lawyer and to my best knowledge nobody in my family before had interest in science.
I grew up between the two world wars and received a rather solid general education, the kind middle class children enjoyed in a country whose educational system had its roots dating back to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
I was invited to join the newly established Central Chemical Research Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1954 and was able to establish a small research group in organic chemistry, housed in temporary laboratories of an industrial research institute.
During our stay in London for the first time I was able to establish personal contact with some of the organic chemists, whose work I knew and admired from the literature. I found them most gracious and helpful.
Although reading the classics in Latin in school may be not as fulfilling as it would be at a more mature age, few scientists can afford the time for such diversion later in life.
In the summer of 1965 I was invited to join Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio and returned to academic life as professor with the added responsibility of becoming also Department Chairman.
If yon wish to be like the gods on earth, to be free in the realms of the dead, pluck not the fruit from the garden! In appearance it may glisten to the eye; but the perishable pleasure of possession quickly avenges the curse of curiosity.
To persevere, I think, is important for everybody. Don't give up, don't give in. There's always an answer to everything.
People wanted to be friends with me for not the right reasons. They'd introduce me to somebody else as the Olympian or the swimmer. I didn't want to stand out. I wanted to blend in.
Can the magic of flight ever be carried by words? I think not.