Quoting mathematician Sylvain Cappell (NYU - Courant Inst.): "When you start on a new problem, you always feel stupid. You might spend a whole day on a single

Quoting mathematician Sylvain Cappell (NYU - Courant Inst.): "When you start on a new problem, you always feel stupid. You might spend a whole day on a single paper, an hour on a single line. And you still don’t understand it. When you get to a certain position in life, you don’t want to feel stupid anymore. In mathematics, that’s when you’re dead."