John Allen Paulos Quotes

I used to be surprised and even depressed when I met someone I had admired and discovered him or her to be a jerk or, perhaps worse, rather common. Now I half expect this reaction and even find it a little reassuring, maybe even uplifting. Isn't it amazing that somebody like that could produce such and such.

There is something inhuman and vaguely pornographic about statistics ... Pornography, on the other hand, with its loosely bound sequences of storyless sexual couplings often has the feel of a statistical survey.

Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.

We ourselves are co-called non-linear dynamical systems ... I don't feel quite so pathetic when I interrupt a project to check on some obscure web site or newsgroup or derive an iota of cheer by getting rid of pocketful of change.

Innumeracy and pseudoscience are often associated, in part because of the ease with which mathematical certainty can be invoked, to bludgeon the innumerate into a dumb acquiescence.

Mathematics is no more computation than typing is literature.

The only bit of logic-based public bathroom humor I know is: the difference between men and women is that between the statement [P and not Q] and the statement [Q and not P].

The simple equations that generate the convoluted Mandelbrot fractal have been called the wittiest remarks ever made.

In the stock market ... You can be right for the wrong reasons or wrong for the right reasons.

The nuclear weapons on board just one of our Trident submarines contain eight times the firepower expended in all of World War II.

How many pizzas are consumed each year in the United States? How many words have you spoken in your life? How many different peoples names appear in the New York Times each year? How many watermelons would fit inside the U.S. Capital building? What is the volume of all the human blood in the world?

I sometimes think it would be beneficial if people thought of each other as "historical factorials." Thus, (Myrtle!) would be understood not just as present-day Myrtle but as the product of all her past experiences.

The Internet is the world's largest library. It's just that all the books are on the floor.

Data, data everywhere, but not a thought to think.

For example, knowing that it takes only about eleven and a half days for a million seconds to tick away, whereas almost thirty-two years are required for a billion seconds to pass, gives one a better grasp of the relative magnitudes of these two common numbers.

Certainty a strange Ferris wheel of a statement!

The fashion pages have always baffled me. In my opinion, the articles appear to be full of gobbledygook as to make the astrology column seem factual by comparison.