Benoit Mandelbrot

Although computer memory is no longer expensive, there's always a finite size buffer somewhere. When a big piece of news arrives, everybody sends a message to everybody else, and the buffer fills. ”

Where do I really belong? I avoid saying everywhere - which switches all too easily to nowhere. Instead, when pressed, I call myself a fractalist. ”

An extraordinary amount of arrogance is present in any claim of having been the first in inventing something. ”

Both parents worshiped individual achievement, but because of the Depression and the war, they never achieved what they wanted and deserved. So their ambition and high expectations were transferred to me. ”

For much of my life there was no place where the things I wanted to investigate were of interest to anyone. ”

My fate has been that what I undertook was fully understood only after the fact. ”

Father was bold, and Mother was cautious. They never shouted at each other but argued constantly about strategy, and they taught me very early that before taking big risks, one must carefully figure the odds. ”

Now that I near 80, I realize with wistful pleasure that on many occasions I was 10, 20, 40, even 50 years ahead of my time. ”

Most were beginning to feel they had learned enough to last for the rest of their lives. They remained mathematicians, but largely went their own way. ”

When I first began studying prices, it wasn't a topic that mathematicians were working on. Purely by accident, I saw a set of data on price changes presented in a lecture and realized they behaved similarly to the geometric models I was already studying. ”