I keep three framed photographs on my desk: the latest school picture of my daughter; a photo of my wife getting her diploma from the University of Chicago; and Lytton Strachey, looking serenely self-possessed.

Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.

If you've never met a student from the University of Chicago, I'll describe him to you. If you give him a glass of water, he says, "This is a glass of water. But is it a glass of water? And if it is a glass of water, why is it a glass of water?" And eventually he dies of thirst.

I met my wife, Margaret L. Mack, at the University of Chicago. We were married in 1936. She died in 1970.

To be a good biographer, you have to be an empiricist. You know, you have to gather the evidence, you have to keep an open mind, and you have to be objective. A memoirist goes in with all the baggage of a bad biographer.

I graduated from the University, my wife graduated from the University, my oldest daughter is a graduate, my middle daughter is attending and my daughter in high school will probably go next year,