Applied mathematics will always need pure mathematics just as anteaters will always need ants.
The heart of mathematics is its problems.
It saddens me that educated people don't even know that my subject exists.
I read once that the true mark of a pro - at anything - is that he understands, loves, and is good at even the drudgery of his profession.
Mathematics - this may surprise or shock some - is never deductive in creation.
If the NSF had never existed, if the government had never funded American mathematics, we would have half as many mathematicians as we now have, and I don't see anything wrong with that.