Later Life
Many fans told Doohan over the years that it was he who inspired them to choose engineering as a profession. Astronaut Neil Armstrong, an engineer before he participated in NASA's Apollo program, personally told Doohan on stage at Doohan's last public appearance, "From one old engineer to another, thanks, mate." In a later interview, this time for the first Trekkies film, Doohan related the story of a young fan who was contemplating suicide; Doohan says that he convinced her to attend his next convention appearance, and later found out that his encouragement and kind words had not only saved her life, but also inspired her to go back to school and become an Electronics Engineer.
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Famous quotes containing the word life:
“The stabbing horror of life is not contained in calamities and disasters, because these things wake one up and one gets very familiar and intimate with them and finally they become tame again.... No, it is more like being in a hotel room in Hoboken let us say, and just enough money in one’s pocket for another meal.”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)
“Parenting is the one area of my life where I can feel incompetent, out of control and like a total failure all of the time.”
—Attorney Father. As quoted in Reviving Ophelia, by Mary Pipher, ch. 4 (1994)