Mathematical Funny Quotes

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It's not because I want to make out with her." Hold on." He grabbed a pencil and scrawled excitedly at the paper as if he'd just made a mathematical breakthrough and then looked back up at me. "I just did some calculations, and I've been able to determine that you're full of shit
John Green (Looking for Alaska)
...I guess I can put two and two together." "Sometimes the answer's four," I said, "and sometimes it's twenty-two...
Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man)
The apex of mathematical achievement occurs when two or more fields which were thought to be entirely unrelated turn out to be closely intertwined. Mathematicians have never decided whether they should feel excited or upset by such events.
Gian-Carlo Rota (Indiscrete Thoughts)
You may not know this, but talking about mathematics eliminates any possibility of being kissed in the first place.
Lisa Kleypas (Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels, #6))
There was a seminar for advanced students in Zürich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann didn’t say anything but after five minutes he raised his hand. When I called on him he went to the blackboard and proceeded to write down the proof. After that I was afraid of von Neumann.
George Pólya
Mathematicians can be persnickety about logical niceties. We're the kind of people who think it's funny, when asked, "Do you want soup or salad with that?" to reply, "Yes.
Jordan Ellenberg (How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking)
We often hear that mathematics consists mainly of 'proving theorems.' Is a writer's job mainly that of 'writing sentences?
Gian-Carlo Rota
Mathematics education is much more complicated than you expected, even though you expected it to be more complicated than you expected.
Edward Griffith Begle
Whatever— the soup is getting cold. [Last sentence of a mathematical theorem in Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, 1518]
Leonardo da Vinci
It may be appropriate to quote a statement of Poincare, who said (partly in jest no doubt) that there must be something mysterious about the normal law since mathematicians think it is a law of nature whereas physicists are convinced that it is a mathematical theorem.
Mark Kac (Statistical Independence in Probability, Analysis, and Number Theory (Carus Mathematical Monographs, 12))
It is a funny paradox of design: utility breeds beauty. There is elegance in efficiency, a visual pleasure in things that just barely work.
Ben Orlin (Math with Bad Drawings)
I started studying law, but this I could stand just for one semester. I couldn't stand more. Then I studied languages and literature for two years. After two years I passed an examination with the result I have a teaching certificate for Latin and Hungarian for the lower classes of the gymnasium, for kids from 10 to 14. I never made use of this teaching certificate. And then I came to philosophy, physics, and mathematics. In fact, I came to mathematics indirectly. I was really more interested in physics and philosophy and thought about those. It is a little shortened but not quite wrong to say: I thought I am not good enough for physics and I am too good for philosophy. Mathematics is in between.
George Pólya
A brick can be used to represent the zero probability of this book being any good.
Amy Sommers (A bit of rubbish about a Brick and a Blanket)
Je me rends parfaitement compte du desagreable effet que produit sur la majorite de l'humanité, tout ce qui se rapporte, même au plus faible dègré, á des calculs ou raisonnements mathematiques. I am well aware of the disagreeable effect produced on the majority of humanity, by whatever relates, even at the slightest degree to calculations or mathematical reasonings.
Hiram Stevens Maxim
When one thinks of 'matrices' and 'codes' it is sometimes helpful to bear these figures in mind. The matrix is the pattern before you, representing the ensemble of permissible moves. The code which governs the matrix can be put into simple mathematical equations which contain the essence of the pattern in a compressed, 'coded' form; or it can be expressed by the word 'diagonals'. The code is the fixed, invariable factor in a skill or habit; the matrix its variable aspect. The two words do not refer to different entities, they refer to different aspects of the same activity. When you sit in front of the chessboard your code is the rule of the game determining which moves are permitted, your matrix is the total of possible choices before you. Lastly, the choice of the actual move among the variety of permissible moves is a matter of strategy, guided by the lie of the land-the 'environment' of other chessmen on the board. We have seen that comic effects are produced by the sudden clash of incompatible matrices: to the experienced chess player a rook moving bishopwise is decidedly 'funny'.
Arthur Koestler (The Act of Creation)
Here is a funny little age problem, by the late Sam Loyd, which has been very popular in the United States. Can you unravel the mystery? The combined ages of Mary and Ann are forty-four years, and Mary is twice as old as Ann was when Mary was half as old as Ann will be when Ann is three times as old as Mary was when Mary was three times as old as Ann. How old is Mary? That is all, but can you work it out? If not, ask your friends to help you, and watch the shadow of bewilderment creep over their faces as they attempt to grip the intricacies of the question.
Henry Ernest Dudeney (Amusements in Mathematics)
When Cloud Yabuki-Varma takes off her heart-shaped glasses all manner of items disappear, and when she puts them on they come back, and when she holds them out in front of her nose she can see stuff in the lenses but not around the edges. Spooky. The dinosaurs in Reptile Republic, the instruments in Music Corner, the entirety of Cupcake Garden, the floating mathematical models that can be manipulated to score points: now you see it, now you don’t; now you see it, now you don’t. People do look silly in mesh when you are real world. Her classmates interact with invisible beasts, gesticulate at empty space, laugh in unison when nothing funny has happened. Some big trick. Every child is wearing i-specs in various designs
Katie Ward (Girl Reading: A Novel)
The ï⌁ᵶ⎔ctogon8⌁ð Do not beat your nik, Or play at fiddlesticks. Prefix not thy rhetoric With suffix that transfix. Play no dirty tricks, That try to s’nick or nix. Go the quick route fix– With things that intermix. Do not be thick, Or over politic. Be ye no sophistahick, Playin’ smartass in the sticks. Do not be sad or heartsick, If your neck has no ies full of hick. If you are not on the River Styx, Look alive–give Charon a kick. If a bad guy has given all the slip, Be chivalric: use a *sharp stick. If with a bovine that is lovesick, She’ll smooch you a wet cowlick. Light a candlestick: Let it all brightly click– [Eighth power of a # ∞8: ≒ ∼ ≓ —be sure well to remember]. Zenzic aside, Do not panic but abide. ’Tis just a mathematic– Past the deep end sixth— It is nothing ’cept a ⇌ ’twixt ⇋. Quite a simple pick: Avoid the contradixts– Choose humble little⌁ Zenzizenzizenzics ⌁—
Douglas M. Laurent
Physics joined linguistics, mathematics and psychology in this metaprogramming hall of mirrors when Schrödinger demonstrated that quantum events are not "objective” in the Newtonian sense. For fifty years since then, physicists have been struggling to build a system that will get them out of this Strange Loop. The results have been as funny as a Zen koan.
Robert Anton Wilson (Prometheus Rising)
they’ll also broadcast, hoping that somewhere else in the universe, another species is also harnessing the energy of their star to focus the faint rays across light-years and eons. They’ll play a message designed to introduce us to strangers, written in a language based on mathematics and logic. I’ve always found it funny that we think the best way to communicate with extraterrestrials is to speak in a way that we never do in life.
Ken Liu (The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories)