“Dad just stared at me like I'd started speaking Greek. Of course, Dad probably spoke Greek, so maybe it was more like I was talking Martian.”

“The Greeks were the first mathematicians who are still ‘real’ to us to-day. Oriental mathematics may be an interesting curiosity, but Greek mathematics is the real thing. The Greeks first spoke a language which modern mathematicians can understand: as Littlewood said to me once, they are not clever schoolboys or ‘scholarship candidates’, but ‘Fellows of another college’. So Greek mathematics is ‘permanent’, more permanent even than Greek literature. Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because languages die and mathematical ideas do not. ‘Immortality’ may be a silly word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may mean.”

“When I first started studying Greek, one of my absolute favorite parts was realizing that so many English words had these old, secret roots. Learning Greek was like being given a super-power: linguistic x-ray vision.”

“«“Everybody is in trouble with my dad. My dad only sort of gets the Internet. My dad started looking up all his old enemies on Facebook. My dad picks big flamewar fights. It’s like my dad just discovered that people can talk about politics without his permission. Facebook is like his new drug, he’s getting all sweaty and manic... Farfalla, is Facebook the work of the Devil? Google is ‘not evil,’ but nobody ever said that Facebook was ‘not evil.’”»”

“...And of course, your dad was always talking about you, so between him and Jenna, I feel like I already know you.”Man, first Cal, then Lara and the other Council members, now Vix. Did Dad have a blog about me or something? “My Daughter Sophie and Why You Should All Follow Her and/or Marry Her.”

“If I'm a guy who doesn't seem so merry,It's just because I'm so misunderstood.When I was young I ate a dictionary,And that did not do me a bit of good.For I've absorbed so many words and phrases—They drive me dizzy when I want to speak.I start explaining but each person gazesAs if I spoke in Latin or in Greek.”