"Exploring Stephen Hawking's 'Unfettered Mind' by NPR STAFF
http://www.npr.org/2012/01/03/144312546/stephen-hawking-exploring-an-unfettered-mind?sc=fb&cc=fp
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"But Hawking's disease has progressed slowly, while his personal and professional life has flourished. He celebrates his 70th birthday this January, says Ferguson, and continues to work on projects despite having very limited use of his physical body. (He communicates using a voice synthesizer, which he controls using a muscle in his cheek.)
"It's just so interesting to see how he came to terms with [his illness]," says Ferguson. "What he says is that it wasn't courage. [He says] 'I just did what I had to do.' ... He took to listening to a lot of Richard Wagner, thinking of himself as a rather tragic hero. His mind went through all kinds of ways of dealing with that type of problem, but eventually, I think, he realized that theoretical physics was kind of a great escape from it."