math Quotes

“And so, in that Greek letter that looks like a shack with a corrugated tin roof, in that elusive, irrational number with which scientists try to understand the universe, I found refuge.”

“In other words, to put it into Euclid, or old-fashioned plane geometry, a straight line is not the shortest distance between two points.”

“As a purely mathematical fact, people who sleep less live more.”

“‘I thought I could start over, you see. But now I know you can never start over. Not really. You think you have control, but you are like a fly in somebody else’s web. Sometimes I think that’s why I like accounting. All day, you are only dealing with numbers. You add them, multiply them, and if you are careful, you will always have a solution. There’s a sequence there. An order. With numbers, you can have control….’”

“A big part of the tutor’s job was to steer the players away from the professors and courses most likely to lead to lack of performance. The majority of the football team wound up majoring in ‘Criminal Justice.’ What Criminal Justice had going for it was that it didn’t require any math or language skills. Criminal Justice classes were also almost always filled with other football players.”

“That is the inescapable math of tragedy and the multiplication of grief. Too many good people die a little when they lose someone they love. One death begets two or twenty or one hundred. It’s the same all over the world.”

“Maisy does some sums.”

“I’ve broken the math curse. I can solve any problem.”

“Mrs. Fibonacci has obviously put a math curse on me. Everything I look at or think about has become a math problem.”

“On Monday in math class Mrs. Fibonacci says, ‘You know, you can think of almost everything as a math problem.’ On Tuesday I start having problems.”

“I’m about to really lose it, when the lunch bell rings. Unfortunately for me, lunch is pizza and apple pie. Each pizza is cut into 8 equal slices. Each pie is cut into 6 equal slices. And you know what that means: fractions.”

“I stagger out of school. I’m a math zombie now. I have to find something to break this math curse. I decide to try chocolate.”

“Then, when I’ve got a degree in Maths, or Physics, or Maths and Physics, I will be able to get a job and earn lots of money and I will be able to pay someone who can look after me and cook my meals and wash my clothes, or I will get a lady to marry me and be my wife and she can look after me so I can have company and not be on my own.”

“Mr. Jeavons said that I liked maths because it was safe. He said I liked maths because it meant solving problems, and these problems were difficult and interesting but there was always a straightforward answer at the end. And what he meant was that maths wasn’t like life because in life there are no straightforward answers at the end.”

“It’s bad enough that I’m the darkest, worst-dressed thing in school. I’m also the tallest, skinniest thing you ever seen. And people like John-John remind me of it every chance they get. They don’t say nothing about the fact that I’m a math whiz, and can outdo ninth graders when it comes to figuring numbers. Or that I got a good memory and never forget one single, solitary thing I read. They only see what they see, and they don’t seem to like what they see much.”

“Matthew, did you ever study geometry when you went to school?” “Well now, no, I didn’t,” said Matthew, coming out of his doze with a start. “I wish you had,” sighed Anne, “because then you’d be able to sympathize with me. You can’t sympathize properly if you’ve never studied it. It is casting a cloud over my whole life. I’m such a dunce at it, Matthew.”