I guess the two things I was most interested in were telescopes and steam engines. My father was an engineer on a threshing rig steam engine and I loved the machinery.

Clyde Tombaugh

You wonder about it and wonder how will I make an instrument that can handle this kind of a problem.

Clyde Tombaugh

By the time I was in sixth grade I could bound every country in the world from memory.

Clyde Tombaugh

That's the way I got along in life. I don't ever remember being particularly jealous of anybody, because I figured if I can't do it myself, I don't deserve to get it.

Clyde Tombaugh

It was depressing, very depressing. I worried about how I would make a living. I didn't want to stay on the farm. It didn't offer the challenge I wanted and yet, without a college education, I felt that I was really out of luck.

Clyde Tombaugh

I shed many a tear when the steam engines went out of style on the railroads. I'd like to seem them come back, but I realize the diesels are more efficient.

Clyde Tombaugh

You have to compete with others in the field. Sometimes the competition gets pretty fierce because you're competing for funds or grants to do your work, the financial work.

Clyde Tombaugh

Although my early equipment was very modest, later I made my own and they were more powerful.

Clyde Tombaugh