The library is the mathematician's laboratory.

Mathematics is not a deductive science - that's a cliché... What you do is trial and error, experimentation, guesswork.

When a student comes and asks, "Should I become a mathematician?" the answer should be no. If you have to ask, you shouldn't even ask.

...the source of all great mathematics is the special case, the concrete example. It is frequent in mathematics that every instance of a concept of seemingly generality is, in essence, the same as a small and concrete special case.

The computer is important, but not to mathematics.

The author discusses valueless measures in pointless spaces.

... the student skit at Christmas contained a plaintive line: "Give us Master's exams that our faculty can pass, or give us a faculty that can pass our Master's exams."