For most of my life, one of the persons most baffled by my own work was myself.

The rare scholars who are nomads-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.

The beauty of what I happened by extraordinary chance to put together is that nobody would have believed that this is possible, and certainly I didn't expect that it was possible. I just moved from step to step to step.

There are very complex shapes which would be the same from close by and far away.

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

If one takes the kinds of risks which I took, which are colossal, but taking risks, I was rewarded by being able to contribute in a very substantial fashion to a variety of fields. I was able to reawaken and solve some very old problems.

The most important thing I have done is to combine something esoteric with a practical issue that affects many people.