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

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

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

In mathematics and science definition are simple, but bare-bones. Until you get to a problem which you understand it takes hundreds and hundreds of pages and years and years of learning.

The straight line has a property of self-similarity. Each piece of the straight line is the same as the whole line when used to a big or small extent.

Smooth shapes are very rare in the wild but extremely important in the ivory tower and the factory.

When people ask me what's my field? I say, on one hand, a fractalist. Perhaps the only one, the only full-time one.