People who travel in China tell me that the mood there is still very upbeat, because their media is different from our media. Chinese media emphasize how well things are going and suppress the bad news and publish the good news.

[John Wheeler] rejuvenated general relativity; he made it an experimental subject and took it away from the mathematicians

It is our task, both in science and in society at large, to prove the conventional wisdom wrong and to make our unpredictable dreams come true

I belonged to a small minority of boys who were lacking in physical strength and athletic prowess. ... We found our refuge in science. ... We learned that science is a revenge of victims against oppressors, that science is a territory of freedom and friendship in the midst of tyranny and hatred.

Things are always more complicated than most people believe.

Mathematics is really an art, not a science.

The bottom line for mathematicians is that the architecture has to be right. In all the mathematics that I did, the essential point was to find the right architecture. It's like building a bridge. Once the main lines of the structure are right, then the details miraculously fit. The problem is the overall design.