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I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements.

You know, people come up with formulas who are uncreative. They can't picture something different so they can only go by something that's laid out for them.

I was dyslexic, so math and formulas were not necessarily my strong suit.

I don't want to write formula. I don't want to crank these books out like sausages. Every book is different, which takes a hell of a lot of ingenuity on my part.

I try not to do anything by formula.

Science fiction is not formulaic.

I try not to observe myself in the process of composing a poem because I don't want to come up with a formula, which I would then be unscrupulous in using.

We must not be content to memorize the beautiful formulas of our illustrious predecessors. Let us go out and study beautiful nature.

I enjoyed like nothing else working in pure math, discovering new formulas.

Culturally, I think we have operated as if we had the formula figured out, and it was all about optimizing, in its various constituent parts, the formula. Now it is about discovering the new formula.