I don't see how it's doing society any good to have so many members walking around with vague memories of algebraic formulas and geometric diagrams and clear memories of hating them.

In any case, do you really think kids even want something that is relevant to their daily lives? You think something practical like compound interest is going to get them excited? People enjoy fantasy, and that is just what mathematics can provide - a relief from daily life, an anodyne to the practical workaday world.

If teaching is reduced to mere data transmission, if there is no sharing or excitement and wonder, if teachers themselves are passive recipients of information and not creators of new ideas, what hope is there for their students?

There is nothing as dreamy and poetic, nothing as radical, subversive, and psychedelic, as mathematics.

To do mathematics is to engage in an act of discovery and conjecture, intuition and inspiration; to be in a state of confusion − not because it makes no sense to you, but because you gave it sense and you still don't understand what your creation is up to.

[Math is] not at all like science. There's no experiment I can do with test tubes and equipment and whatnot that will tell me the truth about a figment of my imagination. The only way to get at the truth about our imaginations is to use our imaginations.

[Math] curriculum is obsessed with jargon and nomenclature seemingly for no other purpose than to provide teachers with something to test the students on.