"I realize that I have a turn of mind that leads me to exaggerate and oversimplify things for the sake of better understanding, and I know there are dangers in that. But I think that tendency in me helps me get to the essence of things. I do believe it helped me get at the core of what was going on with these two social movements—civil rights and anti-Vietnam war—when for the first time in my life I had the opportunity and the desire to pay close attention to what was going on around me. What came out of it for me was the realization that I had to do something about the conclusions I was coming to. And that posed some real challenges to me. I liked physics and didn't want to give it up. Being in a university is a relatively easy life. There's status and long vacations, and the money is pretty good, actually. I had a young family to support—two sons—and my wife wasn't working and she was completely dependent on me. But I couldn’t stay quiet about this. - The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds, 2001"