"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character

by Richard P. Feynman

I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way—by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!

All the time you’re saying to yourself, “I could do that, but I won’t”—which is just another way of saying that you can’t.

We did a few more experiments, and I discovered that while bloodhounds are indeed quite capable, humans are not as incapable as they think they are: it’s just that they carry their nose so high off the ground!

It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It’s their mistake, not my failing.

My theory is that it’s like a person who speaks French who comes to America. At first they’re making all kinds of mistakes, and you can hardly understand them. Then they keep on practicing until they speak rather well, and you find there’s a delightful twist to their way of speaking—their accent is rather nice,

I was so excited that I couldn’t think. It’s like when you’re rushing for an airplane, and you don’t know whether you’re late or not, and you just can’t make it, when somebody says, “It’s daylight saving time!” Yes, but which way? You can’t think in the excitement.