Academy of Achievement interview source ↗
We'd walk in the canyons, and we'd often walk with Bethe, and Von Neumann, and Bacher. It was a great pleasure.
The man who inspired me most, I think, was Dr. Alfred Blalock, who was professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins. He was a rather simple man with a burning curiosity. It was through his curiosity that he made many real contributions to medical science. I didn’t think he was an especially brilliant man, I just admired him for his curiosity, and for his perseverance.
I can’t remember that anyone in particular did. I think perhaps it was my mother who influenced me the most. She was a housewife. She had no higher education, but had the most common sense of anyone I knew, and she wanted me to have a career. So she was always very supportive, at a time when many women of her generation would not have been.
To me, the greatest master that ever walked the earth. Maybe some could be as great, but none could be greater.
Joyce Carol Oates, Maya Angelou, David Lynch, Khaled Hosseini, Wole Soyinka, David Hare
Search the directory for somebody in particular.