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.

A Noah's Ark of mathematicians, their lives, loves, hard times, and madnesses, Loving and Hating Mathematics shows our community with all its warts as well as its triumphs. I especially liked the chapter on much-hated school mathematics, 'Almost All Children Left Behind.'

The extreme possibilities are the most illuminating.

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.

Logic has virtually nothing to do with the way we think.

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.