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.

There is a joke that your hammer will always find nails to hit. I find that perfectly acceptable

Unfortunately, the world has not been designed for the convenience of mathematicians.

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

It was a very big gamble. I lost my job in France, I received a job in which was extremely uncertain, how long would IBM be interested in research, but the gamble was taken and very shortly afterwards, I had this extraordinary fortune of stopping at Harvard to do a lecture and learning about the price variation in just the right way.

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.

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