After some minor pieces of theoretical study that I worked on, a student in my statistical mechanics class brought to my attention a problem in polyelectrolytes.

Growing up, mostly in Montreal, I was an only child of loving parents.

Being exposed to theory, stimulated by a basic love of concepts and mathematics, was a marvelous experience.

Life would be indeed easier if the experimentalists would only pause for a little while!

My interest in the sciences started with mathematics in the very beginning, and later with chemistry in early high school and the proverbial home chemistry set.

During my McGill years, I took a number of math courses, more than other students in chemistry.

My education at Baron Byng High School was excellent, with dedicated masters (boys and girls were separate).

After a subsequent interview at Brooklyn Poly, I was hired, and life as a fully independent researcher began.

My life as a working theorist began three months after this preliminary study and background reading, when Oscar gently nudged me toward working on a particular problem.

I have always loved going to school.

It is the business of the future to be dangerous.

A tree full of ripened fruits bows down naturally, because of the weight of the fruits and its willingness to make its fruits accessible to others.

Praise is like ambergrease: a little whiff of it, and by snatches, is very agreeable; but when a man holds a whole lump of it to your nose, it is a stink, and strikes you down.

Knowing where you have come from is important in forming an idea of where you want to go.

It's okay not to be perfect. Your imperfections are what make you YOU. And at the end of the day, people like real people, flaws and all. At least I do.

God made man in his own image, and man returned the favour.

Where both reason and experience fall short, there occurs a vacuum that can be filled by faith.

It's just too egotistical to think that we are the only lifeform in the universe.

I had a great time in my youth and I still feel youthful. I've no desire to look as though I'm in my 20s.

Repose is as necessary in conversation as in a picture.