Notre-Dame de la Garde was a building of impressive dimensions, all in marble, neo-romantic in style, located at the highest point of the city.

“Kill time, what a stupid phrase,” my father said. “We don’t need to kill it, it passes by itself; it doesn’t need any help from us.”

My father’s letter to me ended with a quotation from the great mathematician John von Neumann: “If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.”

There are occasions when you need to talk, and you mustn’t take anything for granted. Then there are other occasions when you have to keep silent because there’s something intangible, something precious in the air, and your words might dispel it in an instant. These are two simple concepts. The hard part is to know when to apply one rule and when t

“Be spontaneous” is the most paradoxical and impracticable of injunctions, whether coming from other people, or ourselves.

“The nice thing about jazz is its imperfection. Imperfection in the etymological sense of the word.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Perfect comes from the Latin perficere, to do something completely. Imperfection, in the etymological sense, is that which isn’t complete. Incompleteness distinguishes jazz from any other kind of music. In

As we proceeded toward the harbor, in fact, Marseilles turned, before our eyes, into a kind of urban metropolis; every corner presided over by prostitutes and pimps, its streets crisscrossed by groups of hungry-looking youths and punctuated with convenience stores filled to the brim like miniature bazaars, boarded-up shop fronts, restaurants smelli

“I read a good phrase about the passing of time,” he said, kicking a plastic bottle. “What was it?” “It got late, very early.” I laughed, although I wasn’t old enough to fully understand the deadly accuracy and truth of that short phrase.

the intelligence you need to really understand law has a very particular structure that’s very similar to that of mathematicians.