Rod’s Reviews > American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer > Status Update

... even on workdays he usually wore casual clothes, reverting to his New Mexico wardrobe of jeans or khaki pants with a blue tieless workshirt.

He so feared that they were already in a losing race against the Germans that he impatiently dismissed any research efforts that seemed too time-consuming

The elementary test of a good society is its ability to keep its members alive

Oppie made the "best martinis in the world", invariably drunk with his trademark toast, "To the confusion of our enemies".

To try to be happy is to try to build a machine with no other specification than it shall run noiselessly

Through all this turmoil, Robert had become something of his own psychoanalyst, consciously trying to confront his emotional fragility

I probably learned a good deal by a method that is never given enough credit, that is, by being with people

And, like Faust, Robert Oppenheimer tried to renegotiate the bargain -and was cut down for doing so.