gistfile1.txt

Once I get on a puzzle I can’t get away. If my mother’s friend had said,
“Never mind, it’s too much work,” I’d have blown my top, because I want to
beat this damn thing, as long as I’ve gone this far. I can’t just leave it
after I’ve found out so much about it. I have to keep going to find out
ultimately what is the matter with it in the end.

That’s a puzzle drive. It’s what accounts for my wanting to decipher Mayan
hieroglyphics, for trying to open safes. I remember in high school, during
first period a guy would come to me with a puzzle in geometry, or
something which had been assigned in his advanced math class. I wouldn’t
stop until I figured the damn thing out – it would take me fifteen or
twenty minutes. But during the day, other guys would come to me with the
same problem, and I’d do it for them in a flash. So for one guy, to do it
took me twenty minutes, while there were five guys who thought I was a
super-genius.