Quotes by John Nash

“I had been offered fellowships to enter as a graduate student at either Harvard or Princeton. But the Princeton fellowship was somewhat more generous, since I had not actually won the Putnam competition... Thus Princeton became the choice for my graduate study location.”

“I thought of the voices as... something a little different from aliens. I thought of them more like angels... Its really my subconscious talking, it was really that... I know that now.”

“The mathematics faculty were encouraging me to shift into mathematics as my major and explaining to me that it was not almost impossible to make a good career in America as a mathematician. So I... became officially a student of mathematics. And in the end I had learned and progressed so much in mathematics that they gave me an M.S. in addition to my B.S. when I graduated.”

“I did have strange ideas during certain periods of time.”

“I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists. However, this is not entirely a matter of joy as if someone returned from physical disability to good physical health.”

“But you see-you-you cant-so-you cant so well argue about these things. Ive learned that its better that I-I dont talk about it.”

“I never saw my grandfather because he had died before I was born, but I have good memories of my grandmother and of how she could play the piano at the old house.”

“I later spent... five to eight months in hospitals in New Jersey, always on an involuntary basis, and always attempting a legal argument for release.”

“Now I must arrive at the time of my change from scientific rationality of thinking into the delusional thinking characteristic of persons... But I will not really attempt to describe this long period of time but rather avoid embarrassment by simply omitting to give the details of truly personal type.”

“Its almost as if a demon might have passed from one host to another.”