Can we really be whoever we want to be, now that we’ve collected all that we are?

I know I've lost my mind. But I'm not concerned, because it's the first thing I've lost in a long time that actually feels good.

You have to smile, if you expect anybody to smile back.

The jocks that used to stuff me into a locker when I was a punk rocker are my best buddies now.

My neediness is not a hole to be filled but something beneath the skin scratching to get out.

Listen to me: everything you think you know, every relationship you've ever taken for granted, every plan or possibility you've ever hatched, every conceit or endeavor you've ever concocted, can be stripped from you in an instant. Sooner or later, it will happen. So prepare yourself. Be ready not to be ready. Be ready to be brought to your knees and beaten to dust. Because no stable foundation, no act of will, no force of cautious habit will save you from this fact: nothing is indestructible.

The Mathematician's Shiva is a brilliant and compelling family saga full of warmth, pathos, history, and humor, not to mention a cast of delightfully quirky characters, and a math lesson or two; all together, a winning equation! When Rojstaczer writes about mathematics, you'd think he was writing about poetry.