Quotations
"My whole life has been spent walking by the side of a bottomless chasm, jumping from stone to stone. Sometimes I try to leave my narrow path and join the swirling mainstream of life, but I always find myself drawn inexorably back towards the chasm's edge, and there I shall walk until the day I finally fall into the abyss."
"Our faith is in our actions. We welcome strangers into our homes, give money and food to those who have none, and sit with the body of a loved one before burial. Even being a good student, or kind to your spouse, is an act equal to prayer. Things that keep us alive and allow poor people to help others, like simple bread, are holy."
"Tengo's lectures took on uncommon warmth, and the students found themselves swept up in his eloquence. He taught them how to practically and effectively solve mathematical problems while simultaneously presenting a spectacular display of the romance concealed in the questions it posed. Tengo saw admiration in the eyes of several of his female students, and he realized that he was seducing these seventeen- or eighteen-year-olds through mathematics. His eloquence was a kind of intellectual foreplay. Mathematical functions stroked their backs; theorems sent warm breath into their ears."
"I am startled to think how happy I am most of the time, considering that my health is a mess. I use a wheelchair due to multiple sclerosis and have struggled with five different cancers. I’m completely blind in one eye, can't see at night, and can drive only short distances in daylight, at speeds that enrage other drivers. My blood pressure is high, my thyroid function low. My bones are crumbling, and I’m shorter than I was two years ago.
Yet I am happy. My wheelchair gets me most places I want to go. Large type on my computer allows me to write. I don't have to put on pantyhose and go to an office everyday. If it snows, I watch the trees turn white instead of worrying about a nerve-racking ride home from the city. Chatting by the office coffeepot has been replaced by e-mail with friends. I have all the things that I promised myself I would have retired someday: books by the stack, a view of the lake, a golden retriever. Cancer has taught me that "someday" is today. And today I am doing exactly what I want to be doing."
Yet I am happy. My wheelchair gets me most places I want to go. Large type on my computer allows me to write. I don't have to put on pantyhose and go to an office everyday. If it snows, I watch the trees turn white instead of worrying about a nerve-racking ride home from the city. Chatting by the office coffeepot has been replaced by e-mail with friends. I have all the things that I promised myself I would have retired someday: books by the stack, a view of the lake, a golden retriever. Cancer has taught me that "someday" is today. And today I am doing exactly what I want to be doing."