Whatever is worth saying, can be stated in fifty words or less.

Rota's personality is compatible with mine.

Knowing what is big and what is small is more important than being able to solve partial differential equations.

Whatever is worth saying, can be stated in fifty words or less.

One conversation centered on the ever accelerating progress of technology and changes in the mode of human life, which gives the appearance of approaching some essential singularity in the history of the race beyond which human affairs, as we know them, could not continue.

He [John von Neumann] had the invaluable faculty of being able to take the most difficult problem and separate it into its components, whereupon everything looked brlliantly simple.

In many cases, mathematics is an escape from reality. The mathematician finds his own monastic niche and happiness in pursuits that are disconnected from external affairs. Some practice it as if using a drug.