Saul David Quotes

I had to get good grades and do well in school - my mother was an assistant principal and my father was a teacher - and they took this very seriously.

My parents themselves both went to university, and they very much expected me to be an intellectual and go through further education, and it's to kind of their surprise that I became an athlete.

I kept on telling my parents school wasn't for me. And they were like, 'No you need to go university.'

My parents had very high expectations. They expected me to get straight A's from the time I was in kindergarten.

I'd always try to get a C, maybe a B. Other girls would trot off a brilliant essay and go off to Oxford; I'd think: 'Where is the justice?' I took A-levels in English, history and theatre studies and got three Bs.

In my school, the brightest boys did math and physics, the less bright did physics and chemistry, and the least bright did biology. I wanted to do math and physics, but my father made me do chemistry because he thought there would be no jobs for mathematicians.

The acceptance to Harvard was more of trophy than a real possibility to me. I would have been miserable.

I grew up in a home and in a world in which you can do anything. We were all expected to go to college. My father was a doctor.

I went to NYU for a year and a half, and I graduated from there and then years later went to Columbia for graduate school.

After taking my B.A. degree in 1939 I remained at the University for a further year to take an advanced course in Biochemistry, and surprised myself and my teachers by obtaining a first class examination result.

I started out with the intention of studying physics. I was a terrible high school student outside of the fact that I did well in physics, but there's a big difference between being good at physics and being a physicist, so I jettisoned that very quickly.

The most important thing I learned at the University of Florida is that a Ph.D. and writing papers is very important in the United States.

I was used to being successful in school, but academics didn't make me happy.

I found university a little dispiriting. I thought I would enter the great halls of Plato, but instead I entered the halls of an intellectual sausage factory. I wanted to do something not on the main course, and chose the environment.

It's a staggering transition for high school students that found they could study five hours a week and make As and Bs.

I was a topper till class tenth and wanted to initially be a scientist.

Some of my academic friends think I've fallen from a very special grace.

From age 16 on, I found school boring and failed A-level Physics at my first attempt. This was necessary for university entrance, and so I stayed an extra year to repeat it. This time, I did splendidly and was admitted to Sheffield University, my first choice because of their excellent Chemistry Department.

In fall 2007, I stood at the midway point of completing my undergraduate studies at Columbia. I studied every moment that I wasn't sitting in class. I was very focused on maintaining a solid GPA, so I could go on to law school.

I think I can be pretty focused, but as I say, it was more wanting to be the good student, seeing myself as a good student, and also, my parents had expectations. They wouldn't have cared if I got a B or a C or even a D.

I scored a 910 on my SAT. I didn't care about education. I don't know what I cared about.

I have a B.S. in Biology from MIT, an M.Sc. in Human Biology and a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from Oxford University, and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. I never intended for so many degrees, but I enjoyed getting them all.

The report I remember most vividly from school is the one I destroyed before I got home, telling my parents I'd lost it. Three words stood out, and still do: 'Must try harder'.

When my father finished his Ph.D., my mother went back for another bachelor's degree, this time in environmental science.

I was a good student. I started college at 16 years old and did okay.