Two recently remembered conversations...

...with a(n eccentric) family friend who my parents met when they were undergraduates, and he was in graduate school: 1) Once he told me when I was very young - maybe late elementary or middle school? - that he thought the highest form of pleasure would be to study an ancient civilization like [the civilization that produced the language I'm currently immersed in], and to lose yourself completely in it. 2) Once he told me brother that he only likes "cheeses that crumble."