Peter Høeg Quotes

“Cantor illustrated the concept of infinity for his students by telling them that there was once a man who had a hotel with an infinite number of rooms, and the hotel was fully occupied. Then one more guest arrived. So the owner moved the guest in room number 1 into room number 2; the guest in room number 2 into number 3; the guest in 3 into room 4, and so on. In that way room number 1 became vacant for the new guest.What delights me about this story is that everyone involved, the guests and the owner, accept it as perfectly natural to carry out an infinite number of operations so that one guest can have peace and quiet in a room of his own. That is a great tribute to solitude.”

“The essence of mathematics lies in its freedom.”

“It takes 20 years to make an overnight success.”

“Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going to fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.”

“It is time for us to insist that we are accountable for the money that we are spending.”

“In mathematics the art of proposing a question must be held of higher value than solving it.”

“Marriage is an attempt to solve problems together which you didn't even have when you were on your own.”

“A wedding is a funeral where you smell your own flowers.”

“I realise that in this undertaking I place myself in a certain opposition to views widely held concerning the mathematical infinite and to opinions frequently defended on the nature of numbers.”

“It takes twenty years to make an overnight success.”