When the weather changes and hurricanes hit, nobody believes that the laws of physics have changed. Similarly, I don't believe that when the stock market goes into terrible gyrations its rules have changed. It's the same stock market with the same mechanisms and the same people.

For much of my life there was no place where the things I wanted to investigate were of interest to anyone.

I didn't feel comfortable at first with pure mathematics, or as a professor of pure mathematics. I wanted to do a little bit of everything and explore the world.

Pictures were completely eliminated from mathematics; in particular when I was young this happened in a very strong fashion.

Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line.

My fate has been that what I undertook was fully understood only after the fact.

I went to the computer and tried to experiment. I introduced a very high level of experiment in very pure mathematics.