Nature is doing everything in perfect harmony... [W]herever you see and whichever [way] you look, there is something fundamental happening, and there… - Tadashi Tokieda

[M]ost people don't have sufficient mastery of their native language. They never had the experience. They don't have... enough practice of careful use of their own native language. ...[Y]ou speak really carefully, making sure that you understand absolutely everything that you are saying and every word and every phrase counts... [N]o... people just blah, blah, blah... talk away. ...[I]f you have a really careful habit of careful use of language... most of the difficulties of mathematics will go away.

[W]hen I did my PhD, it was in very very pure mathematics and I still love that field, ...algebraic topology ...but then ...I started moving into more physical subjects and... started doing experiments... I thought this was an opportunity. Until then I had lots of... friends and family who were not scientists, and who didn't have any mathematical background, but... with pure mathematics it's very difficult to convey the excitement of computing s... [W]ith physics I decided that every time I finish a project, write a paper or even figure out something, I should design a toy that... captures... joy that I have had, and can share it with people... [T]hen it became quite successful, and it became the other way around. Now I look around and... realize that there's science all around and so I start from the toys... I try to... discover one every month... I was given most of them because my good friends send me toys... but I have... stumbled on... 1/3 of them myself, and... depending on the public lecture... I got... maybe a dozen and... try to tell a story. ...[S]ome of the collections are more cohesive stories than others, but ...whatever I take, I start seeing connections ...And as with the larger nature, so with my toy collection, there are lots and lots of inner connections that I'm waiting to discover; and I usually can.

[T]here are lots of things that one does which are essential, indespensable for survival and which is foundational for everything else, about which people never ask... "What's exciting about it?" What's exciting about breathing for example. ...[I]f you stop breathing, you are no longer. ...You're aware of breathing sometimes. It's not that you're completely unconcsiously invisible, but you don't ask that question. What's exciting about... living itself? Of course there are ups and downs. There are dramas in life, but people don't live because it's exciting. People live because it's natural for them and because that's what they want to do, despite everything sometimes, or in some lucky cases, because of some things. ...But people live because it's a basic and natural way of existing as humans, as indeed, biological creatures... [S]cientists, when they are unhampered and unencumbered by those dictates of sociology... where you have to publish in certain ways because you want to enhance your career, because you want to achieve some status, because you want to... ensure you have a certain standard of living and so on. If they are doing science where they do science because, almost, they have to, because that's their existence... If I lost my job... I have to be able to live somehow, but let's assume that I have some kind of income, and I have to move to and live in isolation. I think after... the initial period of being really depressed... "Why am I stuck here?" and so on, I think I'd end up doing science, because that's... who I am.