The world is a very complicated place, as babies know.

Algebraic geometry seems to have acquired the reputation of being esoteric, exclusive, and very abstract, with adherents who are secretly plotting to take over all the rest of mathematics. In one respect this last point is accurate.

The extreme possibilities are the most illuminating.

The world is a very complicated place, as babies know.

My own view is that no major advance was ever found as a result of a committee's recommendation... We should be honest in telling these agencies we often don't know where some ideas are going to lead, but we hope they are going to clarify a problem.

I am accustomed, as a professional mathematician, to living in a sort of vacuum, surrounded by people who declare with an odd sort of pride that they are mathematically illiterate.

I think that mathematics can benefit by acknowledging that the creation of good models is just as important as proving deep theorems.