The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

To understand the arithmetic of algebraic varieties is to understand the symmetries hidden within them.

And the thing about a successful life is that a lot of the time, our ideas of what it would mean to live successfully are not our own. They're sucked in from other people; chiefly, if you're a man, your father, and if you're a woman, your mother. Psychoanalysis has been drumming home this message for about 80 years. No one's quite listening hard enough, but I very much believe it's true.

人的状况...是一种每个人对每个人的战争状况。