I spent my time very nicely in many ways, but not fully satisfactory. Then I became Professor in France, but realized that I was not - for the job that I should spend my life in.

Many painters had a clear idea of what fractals are. Take a French classic painter named Poussin. Now, he painted beautiful landscapes, completely artificial ones, imaginary landscapes. And how did he choose them? Well, he had the balance of trees, of lawns, of houses in the distance. He had a balance of small objects, big objects, big trees in front and his balance of objects at every scale is what gives to Poussin a special feeling.

A formula can be very simple, and create a universe of bottomless complexity.

Why is geometry often described as cold and dry? One reason lies in its inability to describe the shape of a cloud, a mountain, a coastline or a tree.

In fact, I barely missed being number one in France in both schools. In particular I did very well in mathematical problems.

Being a language, mathematics may be used not only to inform but also, among other things, to seduce.

Beautiful, damn hard, increasingly useful. That's fractals.