His mother, when asked, smiled, and said, “I wouldn’t begin to know.” Stewart muttered that he was not, but he didn’t contest the idea with the vigor of his Afghan denial.

It’s always nice to know that in the future life will work out. But I wouldn’t have wanted to know that I would win a Nobel prize. I think that would have skewed me too much. I don’t think one should ...

We lyin’ ain’t nothin,’ and I’d have to believe them because I don’t know,” he said. “I go to sleep and wake up in the hospital. I don’t feel anything.