Apart from that Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?

In one word he told me the secret of success in mathematics: plagiarize; only be sure always to call it . . . research.

People are stupider than anybody.

I'm not tempted to write a song about George W.Bush. I couldn't figure out what sort of song I would write. That's the problem: I don't want to satirise George Bush and his puppeteers, I want to vaporise them. And that's not funny.

But in the new (math) approach, the important thing is to understand what you're doing, rather than to get the right answer.

And although I'm all for freedom of expression and against censorship, there are certain things I'm not willing to go to jail for.

The civil liberties types who are fighting this issue have to fight it, owing to the nature of the laws, as a matter of freedom of speech and stifling of free expression and so on. But we know what's really involved, dirty books are fun. That's all there is to it. But you can't get up in a court and say that.