What is your greatest fear? Being found out.

What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Lack of discipline.

What is the trait you most deplore in others? People who cannot take joy in the success of others.

Which living person do you most admire? Paul Farmer and Martin Eakes.

What is your greatest extravagance? Cuban cigars.

On what occasion do you lie? When I am joking.

What do you most dislike about your appearance? Absence of eyebrows.

What is the quality you most like in a woman? Intelligence—it’s very sexy.

Which words or phrases do you most overuse? I swear a lot.

What or who is the greatest love of your life? Anne, my long suffering wife, and my two children.

When and where were you happiest? At E.K. Powe Elementary School, when the children thanked me for helping build their science center, which was named in my honor.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My well honed incompetence around all things technical.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Personally, helping raise my children to be the young adults they have become, and professionally, mentoring many young people and helping Duke become comfortable with the implications—both positive and negative—of its newfound prominence as one of the world’s great universities.

If you were to die and come back as a person or thing, what would it be? Derek Jeter.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery? Seeing children suffer.

What is your favorite occupation? Chronicle reporter.

What is your most marked characteristic? Ability to see humor in most things.

Who are your favorite writers? David McCullough, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Robert Caro, Roger Angell.

What are your favorite names? Evan and Sam.

What is it that you most dislike? People who take themselves too seriously.

How would you like to die? Quietly, with Samuel Barber’s “Adagio” playing in the background.

What is your motto? It never occurred to me to have a motto.