How much he was shaped by being in the hospital so much as a...

How much he was shaped by being in the hospital so much as a kid. Because he was sick, he was a reader, and because he was a reader, [John F.] Kennedy had heroes. Because he had heroes, he went into politics. (Kennedy liked Sir Walter Scott, King Arthur's knights, and biographies of political leaders.) If he hadn't been sick, he might have been like everybody else in the family, a jock.