The language that nature speaks is the same language that we invented for mathematics. That's just an amazing piece of luck, which we don't understand.

Science is my territory, but science fiction is the landscape of my dreams.

The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing.

We must be careful not to discourage our twelve-year-olds by making them waste the best years of their lives preparing for examinations.

I think the biggest misconception about mathematics is that everybody has to learn it. That seems to be a complete mistake. All the time worrying about pushing the children and getting them to be mathematically literate and all that stuff. It's terribly hard on the kids. It's also hard on the teachers. And I think it's totally useless. To me, mathematics is like playing the violin. Some people can do it - others can't. If you don't have it, then there's no point in pretending.

The progress of science requires the growth of understanding in both directions, downward from the whole to the parts and upward from the parts to the whole. A reductionist philosophy, arbitrarily proclaiming that the growth of understanding must go only in one direction, makes no scientific sense. Indeed, dogmatic philosophical beliefs of any kind have no place in science.

The world is just - it's wonderful when you look at all the detail. It's just amazing. Nothing is boring if you look at it carefully.