Pi Quotes & Sayings

Amelia? Let's make sure we set some time aside every day for one another. We shouldn't bring our work home with us. Okay?"
She smiled. "Deal! — Linda Weaver Clarke

When I first learned of the existence of pi, I knew immediately that we had something in common. We share a parallel path. Certainly there are many times when I too have been considered irrational. Often when alone in my room, I silently ponder the equation for the area of a circle. Area (A) equals R-squared (RR) times the constant pi (C). Then I thought, by assigning the designation (K) and assuming there was an nth or final numeric digit to pi, it all might somehow become rational. The random rolling numbers that could at some point define that ultimate integer, passed through my mind. To me they were like the consecutive series of episodes that define my life. It seemed that it was more than a coincidence that when I took the variables and the constants from the equation and put them all together, A-R-R-C-K, it spells my name. That is why I need to get to the truth. — John Lack

Don't think, but look! (PI 66) — Ludwig Wittgenstein

Chuck Norris knows the last digit of PI. — Chuck Norris

Fischer, the great American chess champion, famously said, 'Chess is life.' I would say, 'Pi is life.' — Daniel Tammet

I think there's probably a controlling intelligence in the universe, a being that decided the rules, such as E = mc2, and the value of pi. But that being isn't likely to care whether we sing its praise or not, I doubt whether its decisions can be manipulated by praying to a statue of the Virgin Mary, and I don't believe it will organize special treatment for you on account of what you have around your neck. — Ken Follett

I would like congratulate everyone who was a part of 'Life of Pi.' — Anupam Kher

The three religions because I wanted to discuss faith, not organized religion, so wanted to relativize organized religion by having Pi practice three. I would have like PI to be a Jew, too, to practice Judaism, but there are two religions that are explicitly incompatible: Christianity and Judaism. Where one begins, the other ends, according to Christians, and where one endures, the other strays, according to Jews. — Yann Martel

I feel like I'm playing some giant video game, or trying to solve a really complicated math equation. 'One girl is trying to avoid forty raiding parties of between fifteen to twenty people each, spread out across a radius of seven miles. If she has to make it 2.7 miles through the center, what is the probablitiy she will wake up tomorrow morning in a jail cell? Please feel free to round pi to 3.14'. — Lauren Oliver

The Life of Pi' timelessly encapsulates an objectively true & real meme that God is Love and seeks out those He calls unto himself."

~R. Alan Woods [2013] — R. Alan Woods

There's always been a lot of pressure and tension on the line. If 'Pi' didn't work out, I have no idea what my career would be. I don't think I would have gotten another shot at it. If 'Requiem for a Dream' didn't work out, they would have called me a 'one-hit wonder with a sophomore slump'. — Darren Aronofsky

A house is a compressed territory where our basic needs can be fulfilled close by and safely. — Yann Martel

Love is like Pi: natural, irrational, and very important. — Lisa Hoffman

Believe me, if Archimedes ever had the grand entrance of a girl as pretty as Gloria to look forward to, he would never have spent so much time calculating the value of Pi. He would have been baking her a Pie! If Euclid had ever beheld a vision of loveliness like the one I see walking into my anti-math class, he would have forgotten all the geometry of lines and planes, and concentrated on the sweet simplicity of soft curves. If Pythagoras had ever had a girl look at him the way Gloria's eyes fix in my direction, he would have given up his calculations on the hypotenuse of right triangles and run for the hills to pick a bouquet of wildflowers. — David Klass

I have a team, the same team of filmmakers I worked with on Pi and Requiem. Which is my cameraman, and my composer, and my producer. We've all worked together for a number of films. — Darren Aronofsky

Of course, I'm not one to judge people by their appearances, Rhonda, but from how this guy looked I would have said he had graduated high school with three friends tops, all of them in the computer club with him, and that he had some super-obscure hobby he was obsessed with, like collecting ancient musical instruments or making origami rocket ships that could break the sound barrier, and that, if he noticed women at all, he tried to impress them with how many decimal places of pi he had memorized. — Rebecca Goldstein

He'd had no intentions of being at the World Memory Championship. Instead, he had devoted the last six months to memorizing the first 50,000 digits of the mathematical constant pi, — Joshua Foer

Never mind," Leo said. "I'm pretty sure pi is, uh, 3.1415 blah blah blah. The number goes on forever, but the sphere has only five rings, so that should be enough, if I'm right."
"And if you're not?" Frank asked.
"Well, then, Leo fall down, go boom. Let's find out! — Rick Riordan

Fredkin believes that the universe is very literally a computer and that it is being used by someone, or something, to solve a problem. It sounds like a good-news/bad-news joke: the good news is that our lives have purpose; the bad news is that their purpose is to help some remote hacker estimate pi to nine jillion decimal places. — Ray Kurzweil

Like Pi, we all have tigers within us. Lil demons which are a part of us. If you can't run away from them, welcome them, feed them and listen to what they will have to say. There is really not a whole lot to be afraid of. — Daniel Gottlieb

I blinked deliberately, expecting my eyelids to act like lumberjacks. But the trees would not fall. — Yann Martel

I do admire the new breed of fictional female PI's. The ones who'll survive a throttling, a kidnapping, a punch in the kidneys from a Mafia goon and then wind up the evening making love to a helicopter pilot. In the helicopter. I think I need more time at the gym. — Cynthia Lawrence

Prodigy
Huge, megalithic corporation seeks a talented, ambitious prodigy to join our exciting dynamic Prodigy Division for summer job. Requirements include at least fourteen years' experience as a certified child prodigy ability to anagram adeptly (and alliterate agilely), fluency in eleven languages. Job duties include reading, remembering encyclopedias, novels, and poetry; and memorizing the first ninety-nine digits of pi.33 — John Green

Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. — Yann Martel

Human rights are an aspect of natural law, a consequence of the way the universe works, as solid and as real as photons or the concept of pi. The idea of self- ownership is the equivalent of Pythagoras' theorem, of evolution by natural selection, of general relativity, and of quantum theory. Before humankind discovered any of these, it suffered, to varying degrees, in misery and ignorance. — L. Neil Smith

The Pi Betas had accepted the fact that Rose was Mexican, but it was obvious they would just as soon ignore it. And they seemed to assume Rose wanted to do that, too. The other girls might not be overtly disturbed by the fact that Rose was a chicana, but they certainly were not going to encourage her to explore her heritage. No, if Rose joined the Pi Betas, she would have to deny the biggest part of herself. She would have to become completely American. — Francine Pascal

PHI is one H of a lot cooler than PI! — Dan Brown

Ang Lee's been nominated for Best Director for Life of Pi, which is what I'm going to call the six weeks after I take this dress off! — Amy Poehler

I think you need to water your plants," Garrett [Swopes, PI]called out to me [Charley Davidson, Grim Reaper and PI].
"Oh, they're fake." He was looking at the plants I had along my windowsill. Either that or my mold problem was getting out of hand. After a long pause I heard, "Those are fake?"
"Yeah, I had to make them look real. A little spray paint, a little lighter fluid, and voila! Fake dying plants."
"Why would you want fake dying plants?" he asked.
"Because if they were all thick and healthy-looking, anyone who knows me would realise they were fake."
"Yeah, but is that really the point?"
"Duh. — Darynda Jones

I am ashamed to tell you to how many figures I carried these calculations [of Pi], having no other business at the time — Isaac Newton

When I achieved the European record for reciting pi in 2004, this captured the imagination of Professor Simon Baron-Cohen in Cambridge, and he finally diagnosed me with Asperger's that year. — Daniel Tammet

I knelt a mortal; I rose an immortal. — Yann Martel

Books lined the shelves of bookstores like kids standing in a row to play baseball or soccer, and mine was the gangly, unathletic kid that no one wanted on their team. — Yann Martel

I find enough mystery in mathematics to satisfy my spiritual needs. I think, for example, that pi is mysterious enough (don't get me started!) without having to worry about God. Or if pi isn't enough, how about fractals? or quantum mechanics? — Tom Lehrer

De Morgan was explaining to an actuary what was the chance that a certain proportion of some group of people would at the end of a given time be alive; and quoted the actuarial formula, involving p [pi], which, in answer to a question, he explained stood for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. His acquaintance, who had so far listened to the explanation with interest, interrupted him and exclaimed, 'My dear friend, that must be a delusion, what can a circle have to do with the number of people alive at a given time?' — W. W. Rouse Ball

We need storytelling. Otherwise life just goes on and on, like the number Pi. — Ang Lee

I don't know if I saw blood before turning into Mother's arms or if I daubed it on later, in my memory, with a brush (Life of Pi 36) — Yann Martel

Rick had said the perfect honeymoon was being together. — Linda Weaver Clarke

I love you, Dani Mega O'Malley," Dancer said against my ear as he moved inside me. "More than the world is big. Deeper than the sky is blue. Truer than the universe is vast. I love you more eternal than pi. — Karen Marie Moning

We believe what we see.' ... What do you do when you're in the dark? — Yann Martel

I chose the name Pi because it's an irrational number (one with no discernable pattern). Yet scientists use this irrational number to come to a "rational" understanding of the universe. To me, religion is a bit like that, "irrational" yet with it we come together we come to a sound understanding of the universe. — Yann Martel

After a moment, Amelia heard Rick humming as he marched down the ramp. It was a familiar tune. She raised a curious brow as she listened to him and then it dawned on her.
"Singing in the Rain!" she exclaimed. "How do you know that song?"
He glanced over his shoulder and smiled. "I had sisters. Remember?" And with that statement, he burst into song: "I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling'! I'm happy again. — Linda Weaver Clarke

What he found was the geometry of the universe. Looking at the bubbles made by the Wego's propellers, he recalled his boarding school math teachers, who had taught him to measure a sphere's volume in terms of pi. He also remembered that pi was an irrational number, a decimal that never ended. He asked himself how nature could ever make bubbles in such circumstances. Did nature approximate? The rules his teachers had taught him must be mistaken. Spheres ought to be understood in terms of the forces that made them. At the age of twenty-one, Bucky determined that the universe had no objects. Geometry described forces. It was an insight bound to shape Bucky's entire worldview - informing every future invention - but — Jonathan Keats

How true is that necessity is the mother of invention, how very true. — Yann Martel

Here is the essence of mankind's creative genius: not the edifices of civilization nor the bang-flash weapons which can end it, but the words which fertilize new concepts like spermatoza attacking an ovum. It might be argued that the Siamese-twin infants of word/idea are the only contribution the human species can, will, or should make to the reveling cosmos. (Yes, our DNA is unique, but so is a salamander's. Yes, we construct artifacts, but so have species ranging from beavers to the architecture ants ... Yes, we weave real fabric things from the dreamstuff of mathematics, but the universe is hardwired with arithmetic. Scratch a circle and pi peeps out. Enter a new solar system and Tycho Brahe's formulae lie waiting under the black velvet cloak of space/time. But where has the universe hidden a word under its outer layer of biology, geometry, or insensate rock?) — Dan Simmons

I do not suspect that Jefferson or Madison ever envisioned Congress honoring the 2,560th anniversary of the birth of Confucius or supporting the designation of National Pi Day. — Eric Cantor

The Great Pyramid was a fractal resonator for the entire Earth. It is designed according to the proportions of the cosmic temple, the natural pattern that blends the two fundamental principles of creation. The pyramid has golden ratio, pi, the base of natural logarithms, the precise length of the year and the dimensions of the Earth built into its geometry. It demonstrates.... As John Michell has pointed out in his wonderful little book, City of Revelation, 'Above all, the Great Pyramid is a monument to the art of 'squaring the circle'. — Alison Charlotte Primrose

The singularity of the point of suspension, the duality of the plane's dimensions, the triadic beginning of pi, the secret quadratic nature of the root, and the unnumbered perfection of the circle itself. — Umberto Eco

The Ludolphian number is fixed in eternity - not a digit out of place, all characters in their proper order, an endless sentence written to the end of the world by the division of the circle's diameter into its circumference. — Richard Preston

You idiot! What do you call a person who plays the piano?' she said, a steely glint in her eyes. 'Pi . . . Pianist?' Derek mumbled. 'And a person who exorcises?' 'Ex . . . Exorcist?' 'So what would you call a person who prepares Mayo . . . whatever?' she screeched. And then the ball dropped. A trembling Derek gasped, 'Mayo . . . ist! Shit! — C.S. Krishna

I can well imagine an athiest's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!" - and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story. — Yann Martel

Time and sunshine healed a sore, but the process was slow, and new boils appeared if I didn't stay dry. — Yann Martel

I hope that Requiem is better than Pi. I hope that Pi is better than my student films, and I'm hoping that I'm getting better as I get older. — Darren Aronofsky

Mockery be damned, my urine looked delicious. — Yann Martel

It can be of no practical use to know that Pi is irrational, but if we can know, it surely would be intolerable not to know. — Edward Charles Titchmarsh

Rick nudged Amelia and grinned. "Hey, stick with me baby, and I'll keep you in shape. Good food. Exercise. Fun games. You name it." He wiggled his eyebrows flirtatiously. "And plenty of lovin'. I guarantee it."
An elderly couple sat on a bench, gazing at the scenery. The man grinned at Rick as he approached and gave an approving nod. Apparently they had heard his insinuations. Rick had spoken loud enough.
"You've got the right idea, young man," said the elderly gentleman as he winked at his wife. "Plenty of lovin'. That's what we do for sure. — Linda Weaver Clarke

I love you more eternal than pi. — Karen Marie Moning

The pyramidal design parameter (i.e., 33 PI) on the Giza Plateau transcends from the terrestrial plane into that of the celestial by the exponential process of raising it to the power of four. As magnified above, so diminished exponentially by four below. And yet, reducing it exponentially furthermore by four, makes it recede into trigonometry and geometry. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

When you get to Hell, I'll be sitting in the hot tub waiting."
Cate Harlow, PI — Kristen Houghton

It's amazing how willpower can build walls. — Yann Martel

They wanted to teach us the meaning of x in relation to pi, as opposed to helping us better understand ourselves and each other. They wanted us to know when the Magna Carta was signed-never mind what it was-as opposed to discussing birth control. — Jay Asher

I played an artist in a comedy called 'Rooster.' It was a zany film by Glen Larson, a friend who produced several successful television series including 'Magnum PI.' — LeRoy Neiman

Every man has got to have something all his own or he isn't a man" - Adam Twist, PI — Myron Night

Although the Academy prefers their Best Pictures grounded in realism, not fantasy, Lee's 'Life of Pi' win proved that the voters understand and appreciate the qualities a visionary director needs to create an otherworldly adventure. — Richard Corliss

Japanese-owned cargo ship Tsimtsum, flying Panamanian flag, sank July 2nd, 1977, in Pacific, four days out of Manila. Am in lifeboat. Pi Patel my name. Have some food, some water, but Bengal tiger a serious problem. Please advise family in Winnepeg, Canada. Any help very much appreciated. Thank you. — Yann Martel

For example
I wonder
could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I hate about my nickname, the way that number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. — Yann Martel

You sit in your chair and ignore it, Moldenke. You remain. Evolution continues, Moldenke remains. You remind me of pi, Moldenke -- ever constant. Do something! Sitting there, gassing the paper weeks away, caring not. — David Ohle

I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time. — Yann Martel

They are simply numbers and cannot thus be right or wrong [ ... ] What I trust that I am saying is that all numbers are by their nature correct. Well, except for Pi, of course. I can't be doing with Pi. Gives me a headache just thinking about it, going on and on and on and on and on ... — Neil Gaiman

Marie, you are the sine to my cosine."
My eyelashes fluttered and so did my heart, but I managed to tease, "Are you saying we'll never be on the same wavelength?"
He moved his head to the side as though considering my words. "More like, we complement each other. In basic trigonometry terms, cosine is the sine of the complementary or co-angle."
"I took trigonometry in high school. All I remember is pi r squared."
"I would argue that pie are round, but whatever gives you a right angle." He shrugged.
I laughed, even though the joke was painfully punny, and my hopes took his words as permission to start the countdown clock on their evil little space rocket. — Penny Reid

But I want to pray to Allah. I want to be a Christian. — Yann Martel

What good your beautiful proof on the transcendence of Pi: Why investigate such problems, given that irrational numbers do not even exist? — Leopold Kronecker

The fact that we cannot write down all the digits of pi is not a human shortcoming, as mathematicians sometimes think. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

I'm stupid," Leo mumbled. "Pi would expand outward, because it's infinite."
He reversed the order of the numbers, starting in the center and working toward the edge. When he aligned the last ring, something inside the sphere clicked. The door swung open.
Leo beamed at his friends. "That, good people, is how we do things in Leo World. Come on in!"
"I hate Leo World," Frank muttered.
Hazel laughed. — Rick Riordan

The RJ45 port on the side of the Pi (see Figure 1-9) includes a feature known as auto-MDI, which allows it to reconfigure itself automatically. As a result, you can use any RJ45 cable - crossover or not - to connect the Pi to the network, and it will adjust its configuration accordingly. — Gareth Halfacree

They've been talking about Pi, which I haven't seen, they've been comparing it to Usual Suspects, Sixth Sense, and Fight Club, and I didn't see that either. — Joe Pantoliano

...I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. [...] It is important in life to conclude things properly. Only then you can let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse..."
~Life of Pi, chapter 94 — Yann Martel

He could hear trhe voices, the whispers, the sighs, of these souls who were unable to let go of their burdens ... Pi understood this need to hold on. To let let go of his pain. It had become such a part of him. Who would he be without it? The thought frightened him. So he wandered the halls of the catacombs like the other souls who were half-dead and half-alive. — Clare Vanderpool

The soul may not be destroyed. The soul goes on forever. Like the number pi, it is without cessation or conclusion. Like pi it is a constant. Pi is an irrational number, incapable of being made into a fraction, impossible to divide from itself. So, too, the soul is an irrational, indivisible equation that perfectly expresses one thing: you. — Joe Hill

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity; it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. — Yann Martel

It has been noted that one needs only 39 digits of Pi to make a circle the size of the observable universe accurate to one atom of hydrogen. — Jorg Arndt

Why learn a number like pi to so many decimal places? The answer I gave then as I do now is that pi is for me an extremely beautiful and utterly unique thing. Like the Mona Lisa or a Mozart symphony, pi is its own reason for loving it. — Daniel Tammet

I am now pretty much tempted to believe that PI was laid down based on temporal measurements as a tool of projecting time onto length. — Ibrahim Ibrahim

Programming graphics in X is like finding the square root of PI using Roman numerals. — Henry Spencer

Everything looks beautiful in Life of Pi. — Lisa Schwarzbaum

Gloom is but a shadow of a cloud passing by — Yann Martel

But there's something about sitting at someone else's desk that makes you feel like looking in the drawers. I resisted the impulse briefly. Then I decided what the hell. I was a private investigator. Poking my nose in where it didn't belong came with the territory. — Stephen R. Donaldson

I'm afraid" "Of what?" "That I'm never going to be able to speak to you. Or that you give up on me before I do" "I'm not giving up on you. You're my infinity Pi. — Kylie Fornasier

I don't make films that are easy to market, unfortunately. I think that 'Pi' was the easiest one, because we had that symbol to stick up everywhere, so that was a good gimmick, and created a good mystery, and we didn't have to do huge scale. — Darren Aronofsky

In the crime novels, a PI is either an ex-cop or has some cop buddies who owed him a favor and who happily provided him with the department's files, while carrying on about how it could cost them their job. I had no cop buddies. I tried to avoid them as much as possible. — Ilona Andrews

The first Mardi Gras I went to, I stayed at the Tulane AE Pi house on Broadway. Slept on a pool table one night, slept under it the next. — Adam Richman

I might survive a few days at sea. Probably not as long as Pi. — Suraj Sharma

There people fail to realise that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. - Pi Patel in Life of Pi
— Yann Martel

A. E. Maxwell wrote one of the smartest, most consistent PI series in recent memory. Big plots, great villains, and a kickass private eye with plenty of humanity. The toughness of Robert B. Parker's early Spenser novels blended with the wry humor and scope of Ross Thomas. Wholly original, endlessly entertaining. The books of A. E. Maxwell are a forgotten treasure. — Tim Maleeny

So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals?' Mr. Okamoto: 'That's an interesting question?' Mr. Chiba: 'The story with animals.' Mr. Okamoto: 'Yes. The story with animals is the better story.' Pi Patel: 'Thank you. And so it goes with God. — Yann Martel

You married me for my brains? I can't believe it."
He grinned. "Well, among other things."
"My charming personality?"
He chuckled. "Not exactly. You have the nicest looking legs ever."
"What?"
"Hey! I can't help it. I guess I'm just a leg man. Personality comes in second. Brains are third."
"Brains are third?" she said in mock disappointment.
"So why did you marry me?"
"Hmmm." Amelia tapped his lips. "Your sweet kisses were the main reason. The rest of you came as a package deal."
"The rest of me?" he said incredulously. "Well, at least I'm a good kisser. I can live with that. — Linda Weaver Clarke

I go to bed with horror on my wings. In my pillow is sad comforts. Like my mother says, 'On essaye a s'y prendre, pi sa travaille pas' (We try to manage, and it turns out shit). — Jack Kerouac

Vertigo, that's where I am. Pi wants to take over, but I don't let it. Looping wants to occur, but I remain sentient, and I don't do any of the various forms of out-freaking I want to do. — Maria Dahvana Headley

I just have this feeling if I take pi, well past all this static, take pi to 10 million, 20 million digits, that I'll find something really incredible. Not just a pattern, not just an order, but a sign. A mathematical sign. — Andrew Schneider

Just as I put my plate on my desk, I noticed a priest waiting in Cookie's office. He was wearing a jacket and jeans, but the collar gave it away every time. We'd apparently forgotten to lock the door, but in all my years as a PI, a priest was new. I felt like I should do the sign of the cross as I walked forward, but I could never remember if it was up-down-left-right or up-down-right-left. I was so bad with directions. — Darynda Jones