Well, my mom had me at 22 and my sister at 24. When I think about her trying to raise these two young girls in Manhattan, having grown up in an incredibly conservative family and her having a more progressive calling for a more liberal life… It was my mother’s bravery, and my mother’s pursuit of her creative life that made it possible for me to have the one I currently have.

It was a very important finding for us because we were involved in nucleic acids. There weren’t many people interested in nucleic acids. There weren’t many people who believed that was the way to find drugs. But when we found out the structure, and we began to understand what kind of bases could be incorporated, and which ones couldn’t, and where they could be incorporated, it put a whole new dimension on it. So it had a very significant effect.

The last teacher I had was a man named O’Halloran. But he was the only one who offered words of encouragement, who told us we were distinct, unique individuals with a right to think for ourselves. And that was just before we left Leamy’s National School. And he told me, “My boy, you are a literary genius.” And you can imagine what I had to put up with at the schoolyard with all the others. “Hey, McCourt, you’re a literary genius. Look at him. Look at the literary genius.

Well, naturally, my grandfather. He was a Hasid, meaning a member of the Hasidic community, and I loved him, I adored him. So thanks to him, I became a Hasid too. And my mother — who actually continued his tradition — she’s the one who brought me to Hasidic Masters. And all the stories I tell now — I’ve written so many books with Hasidic tales — these are not mine, these are theirs, my mother’s and my grandfather’s. My father taught me how to reason, how to reach my mind. My soul belonged to my grandfather and my mother. They enriched me, of course. They influenced me profoundly, to this day. When I write, I have the feeling, literally, physically, that one of them is behind my back, looking over my shoulder and reading what I’m writing. I’m terribly afraid of their judgment.

He was one of those persons, certainly, but my sister, my grandmother and uncle who raised me, who taught me, by their actions, that it was good to be good, that it was nice to be nice, influenced me more than any other persons have since that time.

Try to retain some of the finest parts of the African American culture, some of the sweetest parts. The fact that people kind of drop their voices and become almost musical when they talk to a friend, or to a preacher, or to a teacher. They say, “Hey! How you doin’?” Remember that. Keep the melody in your mind and in your spirit. It will keep you tender in the tough times, which is very important.