Math About Quotes & Sayings

People will always try to steal
your power. When you do well, they'll say it's only because you're rich and your parents are big shots. People who care about you will try to steal
your power, too, but they'll go about it differently. When you fail at something, they'll try to make you feel better by saying that nobody's good at
everything, and you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. They might tell you not to feel bad about screwing up a math test because math's hard for girls.
Or they'll say you shouldn't worry so much about injustice in the world because you're only one person. And even though they mean well, they'll be
making you less than what you can be. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

He would tell stories about the Holy City, about Solomon, a just king, a poet-king, a monarch with a thousand concubines. We weren't quite sure what concubines were, but we guessed: a concubine ... Concubines! One thousand! One thousand women in all colours and shapes - but all of them sexy, of course - one thousand - one thousand raving beauties lying side by side on a bed (what a bed! How wide it must have been!), all of them smiling, all of them reaching out their arms, all of them saying something in Hebrew - but the meaning was unmistakeable - "Come here, sweety." One thousand women. If one were to spend twenty, or fifteen minutes with each one of them, how long would it take to ... ? A problem that our math teacher never assigned us for homework ... ! — Moacyr Scliar

I was born into a working class Irish Catholic family at the brutal bottom of the Great Depression. I suppose this early imprinting and conditioning made me a life-long radical. My education was mostly scientific, majoring in electrical engineering and applied math. Those imprints made me a life-long rationalist. I have become increasingly skeptical about, or detached from, the assumption that radicalism and rationalism are the only correct perspectives with which to view life, but they remain my favorite perspectives. — Robert Anton Wilson

When I cook with my son, I might chop vegetables and have fun with different shapes. Cooking is a way to teach kids about other things, like reading or math with all of the weights and measures. There are so many things that are part of cooking that are also very educational. — Emeril Lagasse

I carried this problem around in my head basically the whole time. I would wake up with it first thing in the morning, I would be thinking about it all day, and I would be thinking about it when I went to sleep. Without distraction I would have the same thing going round and round in my mind.
(Recalling the degree of focus and determination that eventually yielded the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.) — Andrew John Wiles

Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy - this boy! - knows nothin' abou' - about ANYTHING?"
Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad.
"I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff. — J.K. Rowling

The problem with cinema nowadays is that it's a math problem. People can read a film mathematically; they know when this comes or that comes; in about 30 minutes, it's going to be over and have an ending. So film has become a mathematical solution. And that is boring, because art is not mathematical. — Nicolas Winding Refn

Michael Harris opens the doors and gently guides you into a magic world. Once inside, you can't help but feel mesmerized, eager to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. And no wonder: a major thinker of our time is talking to you about math and so much more, like you've never heard before. — Edward Frenkel

He loved how much they loved each other. It was the thing he thought about when he woke up scared in the middle of the night. Not that they loved him - they were his parents, they had to love him. That they loved each other. They didn't have to do that. None of his friends' parents were still together, and in every case, that seemed like the number one thing that had gone wrong with his friends' lives. But Park's parents loved each other. They kissed each other on the mouth, no matter who was watching. What were the chances you'd ever meet someone like that? he wondered. Someone you could love forever, someone who would forever love you back? And what did you do when that person was born half a world away? The math seemed impossible. How did his parents get so lucky? — Rainbow Rowell

You know, students who major in elementary education - they're going to be grade school teachers - they have the highest rates of math anxiety of any college major. And they bring that into the classroom. So you find students being introduced to math concepts by teachers who may have not only a lack of training but also a lack of enthusiasm about math. — Anya Kamenetz

Look, this is a man, he's got great numbers. He talks about numbers. I'm beginning to think not only did he invent the Internet, but he invented the calculator. It's fuzzy math. It's a scaring - trying to scare people in the voting booth. Under my tax plan, that he continues to criticize, I set a third - the federal government should take no more than a third of anybody's check. — George W. Bush

In third period Math, we were forced to sit in alphabetical order. Which put me right behind Logan, who was throwing all those passes to Aiden in the scrimmage. He took off his navy blazer and when he leaned forward to write, I could see muscles bulging across his back and shoulders. I can already tell Math is going to suck, but at least I'll have a nice view.
It's like what Grandpa always says about real estate. Location, location, location. — Jillian Dodd

If he would just work with pure ideas like a proper mathematician he could go as fast as thought. As it happens, Alan has become fascinated by the incarnations of pure ideas in the physical world. The underlying math of the universe is like the light streaming in through the window. Alan is not satisfied with merely knowing that it streams in. He blows smoke into the air to make the light visible. He sits in meadows gazing at pine cones and flowers, tracing the mathematical patterns in their structure, and he dreams about electron winds blowing over the glowing filaments and screens of radio tubes, and, in their surges and eddies, capturing something of what is going on in his own brain. Turing is neither a mortal nor a god. He is Antaeus. That he bridges the mathematical and physical worlds is his strength and his weakness. — Neal Stephenson

As the Laurel-wreathed boxes come down to Gamma, I think about how clever it really is. They won't let us win the Laurel. They don't care that the math doesn't work. They don't care that the young scream in protest and the old moan their same tired wisdoms. This is just a demonstration of their power. It is their power. They decide the winner. A game of merit won by birth. It keeps the hierarchy in place. It keeps us striving, but never conspiring.

Yet despite the disappointment, some part of us doesn't blame the Society. We blame Gamma, who receives the gifts. A man's only got so much hate, I suppose. And when he sees his children's ribs through their shirts while his neighbors line their bellies with meat stews and sugared tarts, it's hard for him to hate anyone but them. You think they'd share. They don't. — Pierce Brown

The physicist, in his study of natural phenomena, has two methods of making progress: (1) the method of experiment and observation, and (2) the method of mathematical reasoning. The former is just the collection of selected data; the latter enables one to infer results about experiments that have not been performed. There is no logical reason why the second method should be possible at all, but one has found in practice that it does work and meets with reasonable success. — Paul Dirac

I really wondered why people were always doing what they didn't like doing. It seemed like life was a sort of narrowing tunnel. Right when you were born, the tunnel was huge. You could be anything. Then, like, the absolute second after you were born, the tunnel narrowed down to about half that size. You were a boy, and already it was certain you wouldn't be a mother and it was likely you wouldn't become a manicurist or a kindergarten teacher. Then you started to grow up and everything you did closed the tunnel in some more. You broke your arm climbing a tree and you ruled out being a baseball pitcher. You failed every math test you ever took and you canceled any hope of being a scientist. Like that. On and on through the years until you were stuck. You'd become a baker or a librarian or a bartender. Or an accountant. And there you were. I figured that on the day you died, the tunnel would be so narrow, you'd have squeezed yourself in with so many choices, that you just got squashed. — Carol Rifka Brunt

There was quite a lot of competitiveness about it, with everybody wanting to beat not only cancer itself, but also the other people in the room. Like, I realize that this is irrational, but when they tell you that you have, say, a 20 percent chance of living five years, the math kicks in and you figure that's one in five ... so you look around and think, as any healthy person would: I gotta outlast four of these bastards. — John Green

We could use up two Eternities in learning all that is to be learned about our own world and the thousands of nations that have arisen and flourished and vanished from it. Mathematics alone would occupy me eight million years. — Mark Twain

Also essential to math is the sense in which abstracting something can mean reducing it to its absolute skeletal essence, as in the abstract of an article or book. As such, it can mean thinking hard about things that for the most part people can't think hard about-because it drives them crazy. — David Foster Wallace

Oh, don't worry about that," said the Mathemagician as he scooped up the pieces. "We use the broken ones for fractions. — Norton Juster

I worry about Las Vegas schools. I hear in math, they only teach them to count to 21. — Rita Rudner

So what were your favorite subjects in school?"
"School?" He leaned back in his chair as though he needed the extra space to think about it. "Probably math. It always made sense. Unlike English, economics, and girls."
"And exactly how do you plan on taking over the free world if you don't understand economics?"
"I'll hire advisers. I'll hire you, in fact."
"Okay. Let me know when your army of junior high zombies is ready. — Janette Rallison

Yes, I was a big math and computer geek, that's true. I was driven by the scholastic side of things. For me, it was all about what I could do with math and computers. — Brian Acton

It gave Jane a wicked sense of satisfaction that he'd noticed that aspect of her sister's personality, but she tried not to sound too arrogant. "Savannah doesn't worry about homework. Apparently they don't care about your GPA when you apply for beauty school."
"Beauty school, huh? I would have thought she'd already graduated valedictorian from there."
Jane blinked at him in frustration.
Fairy's side note: Adults are constantly telling teen- agers that it's what's on the inside that matters. It's al- ways painful to find out that adults have lied to you.
Hunter shrugged. "I guess I shouldn't have assumed you'd be like Savannah where math is concerned."
Meaning: After all, you aren't pretty like she is. — Janette Rallison

Fashion is not just about what we wear, but ... fashion is also a business. It is an art, it's a career that involves science, engineering, accounting and so much more. People can learn about the math behind Charles James' designs, and think, 'Maybe I should pay closer attention to geometry this semester' — Michelle Obama

Let me say something at the outset. The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don't trust the media. This is not a cage match. And, you look at the questions - "Donald Trump, are you a comic-book villain?" "Ben Carson, can you do math?" "John Kasich, will you insult two people over here?" "Marco Rubio, why don't you resign?" "Jeb Bush, why have your numbers fallen?" How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about? — Ted Cruz

I worry about Lily, sluggish as she is. Will she see Carter's truths? Will he tell her? God knows she won't hear them. She's moving too fast to hear anyone's music but her own. She's so set, but I know he could make her settled. I tried to sync their noise into music, but they both pushed back. Too obdurate to be oblong.
Silly Lily. How can she resist someone who brings gum and sounds like math? — Emily McKay

Polarization is just one of many ways group membership can change an individual. Perhaps the most striking effect of group membership is that it can modify individuals' perceptions of themselves. Unable to separate their personal introspection from the ways they believe other people perceive them, teenagers may have what psychologists call an "imaginary audience," meaning they believe that other people are just as attuned to their appearance and behavior as they are (cue any pimple cream commercial). These perceptions can affect various aspects of their lives. For example, psychologists found that when Asian girls were subtly reminded about their Asian identity, they performed better on math tests. When they were subtly reminded about their gender, however, they performed worse. — Alexandra Robbins

I will also talk about my experience of growing up in the former Soviet Union, where mathematics became an outpost of freedom in the face of an oppressive regime. I was denied entrance to Moscow State University because of the discriminatory policies of the Soviet Union. The doors were slammed shut in front of me. I was an outcast. But I didn't give up. I would sneak into the University to attend lectures and seminars. I would read math books on my own, sometimes late at night. And in the end, I was able to hack the system. They didn't let me in through the front door; I flew in through a window. When you are in love, who can stop you? — Edward Frenkel

I think the really cool and compelling thing about math and physics is that it opens up entry to all these hypotheticals - or at least, it gives you the language to talk about them. But at the same time, if a scenario is completely disconnected from reality, it's not all that interesting. — Randall Munroe

Cooking was not a chore for Tengo. He always used it as a time to think - about everyday problems, about math problems, about his writing, or about metaphysical propositions. He could think in a more orderly fashion while standing in the kitchen and moving his hands than while doing nothing. — Haruki Murakami

My basic philosophy of teaching was straightforward and deeply personal. I wanted to teach the way I wished that I myself had been taught. Which is to say, I hoped to convey the sheer joy of learning, the thrill of understanding things about the universe. I wanted to pass along to students not only the logic but the beauty of math and science. Furthermore, I wanted to do this in a way that would be equally helpful to kids studying a subject for the first time and for adults who wanted to refresh their knowledge; for students grappling with homework and for older people hoping to keep their minds active and supple. — Salman Khan

We never know what we are talking about. — Karl Popper

You know the best thing about competition? There's this whole strategy game, and when it all works out its like solving that hard math equation. You finally get the answer and you're so happy. — Shaun White

I used to be jealous; I'm not jealous anymore. And a miracle happened to me, because if you're jealous, it's a cancer, it's a plague on your spirit, it really is. And I actually cured jealousy in a very weird way - I cured it with mathematics. And I'm not a math person at all, but I've been with my wife for about seven years, so we have had sex probably, I'd like to think, like, 9 million times or, at least, 1,500. So, the way I figured it, if she goes out and screws some other guy once - I'm still winning. — Marc Maron

Worrying about money is one of the worst worries. It's like having locked-in syndrome, except you're still moving around and doing things. Your head burns. If other people are not having money problems, it pisses you off because it reminds you that you're limited in the ways you can express your agency in the world, and they aren't. Worrying about money is anger-inducing because it makes you think about time: how many dollars per hour, how much salary per year, how many years until retirement. Worrying about money forces you to do endless math in your head, and most people didn't like math in high school and they don't like it now. — Douglas Coupland

My secret love, Billy Colbert, had to make up the same test.
Afterward, we left the chemistry lab together. 'Well, it was long,' Billy said, 'but it wasn't hard.'
'I thought it was long *and* hard,' I replied.
'Oh, cut it out, Rachel,' Billy remonstrated. 'If there's one thing I can't stand, it's brains who pretend they suffer just as much as the rest of us.'
'I'm not a brain in chemistry,' I protested. 'If I get good grades in science or math, it's because I work. You're the brain in chemistry. I hate that word, brain, anyway. Everyone has a brain, and they're all about the same size, even a moron's. — Barbara Cohen

Music is made up out of these building blocks. Studying how these blocks go together and what they consist of and the math of how it works - it's all the same stuff; it's just different aesthetics that we're talking about. — Flea

Come back down here, heat supply," I commanded. "I'm going to close my eyes and you are
going to tell me about math so I can fall asleep. Tell me some theorems. Is that what you called them?
Tell me how Einstein knew e equals mc squared. And start with once upon a time ... okay?"
"You're a little bossy, you know that?"
"I know. I have to be. It's to make up for not being born with a calculator. Now share your wisdom,
Infinity."
"Once upon a time - "
I giggled and Finn immediately shushed me, continuing on with his "story. — Amy Harmon

Hardest of all were those problems about people doing incomprehensible things with no motivation. I was inclined to drift away from the sum to wonder why people would care what time two trains passed each other (spies), be so picky about seating arrangements (recently divorced people), or - which to this day remains incomprehensible - run the bath with no plug in. — Jo Walton

Well I was about to be expelled from school, I had been arrested and a teacher said: "Why don't you try acting, instead of distracting the class? Why don't you use your comic talent for something more productive?" My maths teacher suggested I do comedy and I decided to have a go. I pursued it after that. I was about 17. — John Leguizamo

What the mortgage bubble was all about was big banks like Goldman Sachs taking big bundles of subprime mortgages that were lent out largely to low-income, highly risky borrowers, and applying this kind of magic-pixie-dust math to these bundles of securities and slapping AAA ratings on them. — Matt Taibbi

I hated science in high school. Technology? Engineering? Math? Why would I ever need this? Little did I realize that music was also about science, technology, engineering and mathematics, all rolled into one. — Mickey Hart

It becomes the urgent duty of mathematicians, therefore, to meditate about the essence of mathematics, its motivations and goals and the ideas that must bind divergent interests together. — Richard Courant

When I was in high school, I was in a special math class. I was infatuated with physics, particularly nuclear physics, Einstein, and the Big Bang. I read a lot about black holes. And partly because I'm so lazy I thought you could do all this just by looking at the sky and thinking up universes. It didn't seem like hard work when I was a kid, so I enrolled in this class. — Aleksandar Hemon

When I became the NASA administrator - or before I became the NASA administrator - (Obama) charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering. — Charles Bolden

I got into writing and thinking about politics because I was told there would be no math. — Jeff Greenfield

To all of us who hold the Christian belief that God is truth, anything that is true is a fact about God, and mathematics is a branch of theology. — Hilda Phoebe Hudson

In college, you had to worry about that math class or this exam that's coming up on Tuesday, but not in the professionals. You eat, sleep, and do everything related to your craft - and your craft is football. You can be at it from sunup to sundown. — Cam Newton

Do the math. America allows about one million two hundred thousand abortions per year. According to the Guttmacher Institute, the average cost of an abortion in 2001, the last year for which data was provided by aborters, was $468.00, so by now the average cost exceeds $600. Multiply the number of abortions times the costs of an abortion. That exercise will yield a total of 'blood money' every year in America of close to a billion dollars ($1,000,000,000.00). — John Price

One of the big misapprehensions about mathematics that we perpetrate in our classrooms is that the teacher always seems to know the answer to any problem that is discussed. This gives students the idea that there is a book somewhere with all the right answers to all of the interesting questions, and that teachers know those answers. And if one could get hold of the book, one would have everything settled. That's so unlike the true nature of mathematics. — Leon Henkin

merely changing how a math problem is presented on a page can change how your brain goes about solving it, — Sian Beilock

What's all this whining about the environment? They're always talking about 'stop the clearcuts.' I mean do the math people. If we were out of trees then we wouldn't have any clearcuts to be complaining about now would we? — George W. Bush

Why do you have such a crappy attitude about math?"
"I don't. I have a crappy attitude about everything. — Laurie Halse Anderson

That is what is marvelous about school, she realized: when you are in school, your talents are without number, and your promise is boundless. You ace a math test: you will one day work for NASA. The choir director asks you to sing a solo at the holiday concert: you are the next Mariah Carey. You score a goal, you win a poetry contest, you act in a play. And you are everything at once: actor, astronomer, gymnast, star. But at a certain point, you begin to feel your talents dropping away, like feathers from a molting bird. Cello lessons conflict with soccer practice. There aren't enough spots on the debating team. Calculus remains elusive. Until the day you realize that you cannot think of a single thing you are wonderful at. — Sarah Shun-lien Bynum

The question you raise, 'How can such a formulation lead to computations?' doesn't bother me in the least! Throughout my whole life as a mathematician, the possibility of making explicit, elegant computations has always come out by itself, as a byproduct of a thorough conceptual understanding of what was going on. Thus I never bothered about whether what would come out would be suitable for this or that, but just tried to understand - and it always turned out that understanding was all that mattered. — Alexander Grothendieck

I think that smart is sexy, and driven is sexy, and passion is sexy, and if you're passionate about math, so be it. — Jonathan Slavin

Math? Forget about it. If I add four plus eight plus six, I have to count on my fingers. I guess I'm hooked up differently. — Jeff Dunham

All I wanted to do was put together one of the best home maths systems in the world, and that's what we've done. I've loved numbers since I was two or three, and I get really excited about them. Now, I'm allowing myself to get excited about things. If you're doing it for a TV network or any major corporation, you have to put a lid on it a little. — Carol Vorderman

I had a feeling once about Mathematics - that I saw it all. Depth beyond depth was revealed to me - the Byss and Abyss. I saw - as one might see the transit of Venus or even the Lord Mayor's Show - a quantity passing through infinity and changing its sign from plus to minus. I saw exactly why it happened and why the tergiversation was inevitable but it was after dinner and I let it go. — Winston S. Churchill

We had the schools we wanted, in a way. Parents did not tend to show up at schools demanding that their kids be assigned more challenging reading or that their kindergarteners learn math while they still loved numbers. They did show up to complain about bad grades, however. And they came in droves, with video cameras and lawn chairs and full hearts, to watch their children play sports. — Amanda Ripley

If you want to understand science, you have to understand math. In business, if you're enumerate, you're going to be a klutz. The good thing about business is that you don't have to know any higher math ... — Charlie Munger

[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 ... — Paul Lockhart

Mathematicians can and do fill in gaps, correct errors, and supply more detail and more careful scholarship when they are called on or motivated to do so. Our system is quite good at producing reliable theorems that can be solidly backed up. It's just that the reliability does not primarily come from mathematicians formally checking formal arguments; it comes from mathematicians thinking carefully and critically about mathematical ideas. — William Thurston

Good people care more about people than food. They try to help people and don't give up even when they get hungry. Only bad people give up. But good people fix things. Good people stay good even when it's hard to. Even if they're sick or sad or they have to lose their favorite stuff. Even if they have to die. Good people see past their own fucking lives. They aren't just hunger and math. They aren't just animals. Good people are part of the Higher, good people are fuel for the sun. — Isaac Marion

You went to school," Lee said. "I mean, at some point. And it didn't suit you very well. They wanted to teach you things you didn't care about. Dates and math and trivia about dead presidents. They didn't teach persuasion. Your ability to persuade is the single most important determinant of your quality of life, and they didn't cover that at all. Well, we do. And we're looking for students with natural aptitude. — Max Barry

When girls are asking themselves 'Who am I?' for the first time and they hear all this bad PR about math, they think, 'Well, whoever I am, I'm not somebody who likes math.' — Danica McKellar

Continuation of the outbreak depended on the likelihood of encounters between people who were infectious and people who could be infected. This idea became known as the "mass action principle." It was all about math. The same year, 1906, a Scottish physician named John Brownlee proposed an alternate view, contrary to Hamer's. Brownlee worked as a clinician and hospital administrator — David Quammen

Intelligence isn't just about how many levels of math courses you've taken, how fast you can solve an algorithm, or how many vocabulary words you know that are over 6 characters. It's about being able to approach a new problem, recognize its important components, and solve it - then take that knowledge gained and put it towards solving the next, more complex problem. It's about innovation and imagination, and about being able to put that to use to make the world a better place. This is the kind of intelligence that is valuable, and this is the type of intelligence we should be striving for and encouraging. — Andrea Kuszewsk

How are you? she asked. It was a question that would've required some college-level math and about an hour of discussion to answer. I — Ransom Riggs

What I thought we might have a conversation about, is basically I do math, sir, not clandestine operations that severely deplete my mental resources. — Suzanne Stroh

Oh, he was a decent-enough high school student, good grades and well-liked, but his test scores were nothing to write home about. He might as well have Christmas-treed the math test. — Thomas Christopher Greene

When we got to the Lock-Horne Building on Park Avenue - again Win's full name is Windsor Horne Lockwood III, so you do the math - Dad said, "You want me to just drop you off?" Sometimes my father leaves me awestruck. Fatherhood is about balance, but how can one man do it so well, so effortlessly? Throughout my life he pushed me to excel without ever crossing the line. He reveled in my accomplishments yet never made them seem to be all that important. He loved without condition, yet he still made me want to please him. He knew, like now, when to be there, and when it was time to back off. "I'll be okay." He — Harlan Coben

The key to good worldbuilding is leaving out most of what you create. You, as the author, had damn well better know the where all that dragon food comes from, but that doesn't mean that I, as a reader, want to read a five thousand word essay about you explaining it to me. I don't need to see the math, but I can tell by the details you provide whether or not you've thought these things through to their logical conclusions. — Patrick Rothfuss

I appreciate and enjoy mathematics and science and all that side of things. I definitely have that side of me even though I'm not by any means an expert, but I love reading about physics and math and that kind of stuff. I wish I knew more than I did. I mean, I read books written for laymen, not textbooks or anything. — Chris Parnell

I had done quite a bit of research about math education when I spoke before Congress in 2000 about the importance of women in mathematics. The session of Congress was all about raising more scholarships for girls in college. I told them I felt that it's too late by college. — Danica McKellar

He doesn't seem to mind at all that he's stupid about math. — Wendy Lichtman

We spend more per pupil than any other country, but among industrialized nations, American students rank near the bottom in science and math. Only 13 percent of high school seniors know what high school seniors should know about American history. — Glenn Beck

I've been on swims where people have freaked out about sharks. You have to think about something else, otherwise it will absolutely paralyze you. I do math problems, anything. — Lewis Gordon Pugh

Suddenly I was a kid in the hall standing outside my locker about to head to Math. But that was how it went sometimes, the English language, when you really needed it, crumbled to clay in your mouth. That's when all the real things were said. — Marisha Pessl

It turned out that Evgeny Evgenievich indeed had a clever plan how to convert me to math. As soon as I came to his office, he asked me, "So, I hear you like quantum physics. Have you heard about Gell-Mann's eightfold way and the quark model?" "Yes, I've read about this in several popular books." "But do you know what was the basis for this model? How did he come up with these ideas?" "Well ... " "Have you heard about the group SU(3)?" "SU what?" "How can you possibly understand the quark model if you don't know what the group SU(3) is? — Edward Frenkel

Are all the scientists here men, then?" "Scientists?" Oiie asked, incredulous. Pae coughed. "Scientists. Oh, yes, certainly, they're all men. There are some female teachers in the girls' schools, of course. But they never get past Certificate level." "Why not?" "Can't do the math; no head for abstract thought; don't belong. You know how it is, what women call thinking is done with the uterus! Of course, there's always a few exceptions, God-awful brainy women with vaginal atrophy." "You Odonians let women study science?" Oiie inquired. "Well, they are in the sciences, yes." "Not many, I hope." "Well, about half. — Ursula K. Le Guin

When I was younger, I loved math. Everything about math. But in school, math now has letters. Like what does x equal? There are also long stories with characters, and although the story is supposed to end with some number, all the words block my path to getting there. — Lynda Mullaly Hunt

You know; when I look at the night sky and I see this enormous splendor of stars and galaxies, I sometimes ask the question, well how many worlds are we talking about? Well do the math, there are about 100 billion galaxies that are in the visible universe and each galaxy in turn contains about 100 billion stars, you multiply and you get about ten billion trillion stars. Well I think it is the height of arrogance to believe that we are alone in the universe, my attitude is that the universe is teaming, teaming with different kinds of life forms — Michio Kaku

I don't like to be negative about math because it really teaches you a lot of great things. You kind of use math every day. — Madison Davenport

The point about zero is that we do not need to use it in the operation of daily life. No one goes out to buy zero fish. — Alfred North Whitehead

Mathematics is about making up rules and seeing what happens. — Vi Hart

The first book I ever wrote was in fourth grade and it was called 'Billy's Booger.' It was an autobiographical piece about a kid who was really bad at math. — William Joyce

The spectacular thing about Johnny [von Neumann] was not his power as a mathematician, which was great, or his insight and his clarity, but his rapidity; he was very, very fast. And like the modern computer, which no longer bothers to retrieve the logarithm of 11 from its memory (but, instead, computes the logarithm of 11 each time it is needed), Johnny didn't bother to remember things. He computed them. You asked him a question, and if he didn't know the answer, he thought for three seconds and would produce and answer. — Paul R. Halmos

One of the nice things about math and science is it's obvious, you get the answer or you don't get the answer. — Lisa Randall

When will it begin, anyway?"
Sirus held his gaze for a moment, his eyes full of concern- a concern that Joss didn't understand.
"Probably sooner than you're ready for."
"When's that?"
"Well." Sirus sighed, as if doing the math in his head."It'll take us about three minutes to gather this stuff and get to the cabin, and another two or three for Abraham to realize you're here. So I'd say you have about seven more minutes of freedom left. — Heather Brewer

What do I like about math? , When I've got figures in front of me, it relaxes me. Kind of like, everything fits where it belongs. — Haruki Murakami

I'm always interested in understanding the math of things and understanding as much as I can about all aspects of business. And what I learn today may be useful to me two years from now. That'sreally the wonderful thing about investments is your knowledge is cumulative. — Warren Buffett

MasterChef Junior for me was about working closely with these kids and getting them to reeducate their parents to understand that food is as important educationally as Math and English and it's important that we don't take it for granted. — Gordon Ramsay

It is all about numbers. It is all about sequence. It's the mathematical logic of being alive. If everything kept to its normal progression, we would live with the sadness
cry and then walk
but what really breaks us cleanest are the losses that happen out of order. — Aimee Bender

We come astonishingly close to the mystical beliefs of Pythagoras and his followers who attempted to submit all of life to the sovereignty of numbers. Many of our psychologists, sociologists, economists and other latter-day cabalists will have numbers to tell them the truth or they will have nothing ... We must remember that Galileo merely said that the language of nature is written in mathematics. He did not say that everything is. And even the truth about nature need not be expressed in mathematics. For most of human history, the language of nature has been the language of myth and ritual. These forms, one might add, had the virtues of leaving nature unthreatened and of encouraging the belief that human beings are part of it. It hardly befits a people who stand ready to blow up the planet to praise themselves too vigorously for having found the true way to talk about nature. — Neil Postman

Math is made for idiots, here is what is the proccess in math class. The teacher show you few exercises, show you the formula, show you the way, say everything about the exercises and then she tell you to solve problems. So as for me the proccess is REPEAT! — Deyth Banger

If you're not a flaming Filipino dancing queen, they never, ever expect the Asian guy to be asking about gay sex. They always figure you want to talk about math. Or the violin. — David Levithan

People think they don't understand math, but it's all about how you explain it to them. If you ask a drunkard what number is larger, 2/3 or 3/5, he won't be able to tell you. But if you rephrase the question: what is better, 2 bottles of vodka for 3 people or 3 bottles of vodka for 5 people, he will tell you right away: 2 bottles for 3 people, of course. — Israel Gelfand

I loved doing problems in school. I'd take them home and make up new ones of my own. But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library. I was just browsing through the section of math books and I found this one book, which was all about one particular problem - Fermat's Last Theorem. — Andrew Wiles