- "Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine." (Turing, alleged)
- "Discovery is a child’s privilege, one who is not afraid to be wrong, to look silly, to not be serious, to act differently from everyone else and ignore the silent and flawless consensus that is part of the air we breathe – the consensus of all the people who are, or are reputed to be, reasonable." (Grothendieck)
- "All the time you're saying to yourself, 'I could do that, but I won't,' — which is just another way of saying that you can't." (Feynman)