Mathematics is a dangerous profession; an appreciable proportion of us go mad.

Before creation, God did just pure mathematics. Then He thought it would be a pleasant change to do some applied.

Try a hard problem. You may not solve it, but you will prove something else.

The first test of potential in mathematics is whether you can get anything out of geometry.

The infinitely competent can be uncreative.

The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it would.

A precisian professor had the habit of saying: "... quartic polynomial ax^4+bx^3+cx^2+dx+e , where e need not be the base of the natural logarithms."

I've been giving this lecture to first-year classes for over twenty-five years. You'd think they would begin to understand it by now.

A linguist would be shocked to learn that if a set is not closed this does not mean that it is open, or again that "E is dense in E" does not mean the same thing as "E is dense in itself".

A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.

I listen only to Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Life is too short to waste on other composers.

How can a God who said, “Love your enemies” spend so much time killing His own?

Throw out old clothes and shoes, and train your brain to get rid of old thoughts and ideas.

A picture means I know where I was every minute. That's why I take pictures. It's a visual diary.

What is the best thing you can do in a close game? Drive to the basket and put pressure on the defense! Not jack up jump shots

Directing is a very long process, and I have to be in love with it if I want to give up two years of my life and live with it from beginning to end!

I usually don't read things written about me and I certainly don't read things if they are inappropriate.

And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary?

Stupidity often saves a man from going mad.

Nothing can trouble you but your own imagination.

Everyone starts at the beginning of the road, and the world is in an endless state of childhood.