I never saw my grandfather because he had died before I was born, but I have good memories of my grandmother and of how she could play the piano at the old house.

I know that if I could really understand mental illness, then it would be appropriate to make a big career shift. I would become a therapist and a leader in terms of mental illness. But I'm not in the position.

I had been offered fellowships to enter as a graduate student at either Harvard or Princeton. But the Princeton fellowship was somewhat more generous, since I had not actually won the Putnam competition... Thus Princeton became the choice for my graduate study location.

As a graduate student I studied mathematics fairly broadly, and I was fortunate enough, besides developing the idea which led to 'Non-Cooperative Games,' also to make a nice discovery relating to manifolds and real algebraic varieties.

I wish I could throw off the thoughts which poison my happiness, but I take a kind of pleasure in indulging them.

It's a very competitive world out there. The competitive spirit is fine within limits. But it shouldn't drown the sheer joy of the game being played. It's natural to want to win. But to me, it's not natural to want others to fail.

If I waited to be inspired to go to the gym, I'd never get there. I schedule my exercise time; I schedule my work time. This is especially important if you have a day job as I did while writing my first seven novels.

Exercise is overrated.