David Lee Quotes

In some ways I've gone to Cash and Carter graduate school.

In fact the experience at Oxford has really helped me later in life.

My life in science has been rich and rewarding. I have sacrificed very little.

Both my wife and I went to Harvard, and it's incredibly exciting that our son and daughter are going there and have the chance to experience it. There are many awesome opportunities at Harvard. That's one of its greatest frustrations - not having enough time to take the classes you want to take.

The good life, as it is popularly conceived, typically involves acquiring mastery in one's work, thus gaining for oneself better terms - or means to rewards, whether material, like wealth, or nonmaterial - an experience we may call 'prospering.'

You don't go to school to become the best chef in the world right after you graduate. School is always a starting point so what people forget is that you go to school to build a foundation, and you want to build a foundation that's not going to crumble.

I also tell them that your education can take you way farther than a football, baseball, track, or basketball will - that's just the bottom line.

I was very precocious when I was young. I went to college at 16, and I graduated at 20. I wanted to be a writer, but I was more interested in experience than in applying myself intellectually.

Somewhere along the line you've got to do your apprenticeship. But I'd want half a chance of being successful at it.

If my idea was just to maintain a certain lifestyle, there would be no need to get a Ph.D. But I do care very deeply about the idea side as well.

A career path is rarely a path at all. A more interesting life is usual a more crooked, winding path of missteps, luck and vigorous work. It is almost always a clumsy balance between the things you try to make happen and the things that happen to you.

I envisioned that as my life: staying in academia to make a living and then taking summers off to write my novels.

No, my profile has leaped over recent years, so has my life experience, and I look forward to the next 30 years being even more rewarding and satisfying than the previous 60!

I've always done more than I ever thought I would. Becoming a professor - I never would have imagined that. Writing books - I never would have imagined that. Getting a Ph.D. - I'm not sure I would even have imagined that. I've lived my life a step at a time. Things sort of happened.

I understand that it would be smart, career-wise, to line up something, but it wouldn't be smart for my personal life or my sanity. Some people thrive when they're working. I thrive when I'm hanging out with my friends and doing yoga.

Gaining my education from practical experience certainly benefited me. If I had gone on to be a lawyer, my life wouldn't have been anywhere near as interesting.

I am always going to be in the hood in my heart, but what I did was added on the masters of arts, fine arts and the doctorate... if you want me to pull that out, I can get very distinguished... but I'm not going there... I don't have to put on airs; the knowledge comes out - just listen.

I was incredibly lucky that my first book found a large and loyal readership. It changed my life - from being a very withdrawn adult to living in Paris as a full-time writer. It has also given me enormous confidence.

One of the biggest changes that ever occurred in my life was going from the isolation of working part-time as a house painter in Henderson County, to Cornell, where everybody was a literary person.

My life has been enriched by excellent human relations, work and interests. I have never felt lonely.

Harvard has played an important role in my life. I was a student, Class of 1936, and I've been on the board of overseers. My experiences there shaped who I am.

I studied for my degree in London and consequently ended up spending five years away from Cornwall. I deliberately moved away from the coast to experience a different way of life.

It was not until I got my first job, at the University of Washington in Seattle, and began playing chess with Don Gordon, a brilliant young theorist, that I learned economic theory.

I think I really benefited from going to college.

I loved it. I just thought I wanted to stay in college forever. I came to New York all by myself; I didn't have any friends there. But it was fine. I felt comfortable. I started thinking, 'Maybe graduate school?' I was really cool with people who were smart, who knew stuff. It's very romantic and stimulating.