I have always loved going to school.

Growing up, mostly in Montreal, I was an only child of loving parents.

Being exposed to theory, stimulated by a basic love of concepts and mathematics, was a marvelous experience.

Life would be indeed easier if the experimentalists would only pause for a little while!

My interest in the sciences started with mathematics in the very beginning, and later with chemistry in early high school and the proverbial home chemistry set.

During my McGill years, I took a number of math courses, more than other students in chemistry.

My education at Baron Byng High School was excellent, with dedicated masters (boys and girls were separate).

After a subsequent interview at Brooklyn Poly, I was hired, and life as a fully independent researcher began.

After some minor pieces of theoretical study that I worked on, a student in my statistical mechanics class brought to my attention a problem in polyelectrolytes.

My life as a working theorist began three months after this preliminary study and background reading, when Oscar gently nudged me toward working on a particular problem.

What you focus on gets prettier

Spoon with me, and I'll show you what a good cuddler I am.

But if each man could have his own house, a large garden to cultivate and healthy surroundings - then, I thought, there will be for them a better opportunity of a happy family life.

Confidence isn't optimism or pessimism, and it's not a character attribute. It's the expectation of a positive outcome.

The quantity of meaning compressed into small space by algebraic signs, is another circumstance that facilitates the reasonings we are accustomed to carry on by their aid.

If the dead could speak there would be no more war.

If the director of the department doesn't even know what the privacy policy is, we are in trouble.

Be who you are and be that well.

This was another item about growing up: you encountered all the cliches of love and loss and heartbreak.

In my opinion, character is the most important determinant of a person's success, achievement and ability to handle adversity.