Some people make sharp distinctions sort of between their recreational musings and their professional work. I don't make that distinction very much

Lots of people working in cryptography have no deep concern with real application issues. They are trying to discover things clever enough to write papers about

I understood the importance in principle of public key cryptography but it's all moved much faster than I expected. I did not expect it to be a mainstay of advanced communications technology

I liked Berkeley tremendously, Berkeley was a very leftist campus. I came to love that city as much as I love Paris or the south of France or New York.

If you have ambition, you might not achieve anything, but without ambition, you are almost certain not to achieve anything.

I have been working on two problems for three years: one of them for 8 or 9 years, and one of them for 3, 4, 5 years.

Without strong encryption, you will be spied on systematically by lots of people.

The secret to strong security: less reliance on secrets.

We in science are spoiled by the success of mathematics. Mathematics is the study of problems so simple that they have good solutions

I have always believed the thesis that one's politics and the character of one's intellectual work are inseparable.

One of the things that characterizes good intellectual work is a certain self-importance

To those who would love me - I offer you a warning. Do no get to close. You won't survive.

In war, the only true victory is peace.

And they just saw me on that and - from the time I was 11 until I was 12, I guess. And then when I had just turned 13, they asked me if I wanted to tour with Johnny Cash back East.

The English are busy; they don't have time to be polite.

All of us task-oriented obsessive compulsives must learn to slow down and let people into our lives.

If you were an actor, anybody could go on Broadway and take a George Carlin hour and do it on stage as a one man show. They're all stand alone essays.

The distinct blue, red, and yellow colors... though they have not the kind of harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and transparent colors, have the effect of grandeur.

In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made

The art of being sometimes audacious and sometimes very prudent is the secret of success.

Honestly, Battlestar is a truly unique thing, and its hard for anything to step up to that. There arent often shows that are as good as that.