Proof Quotes

Claire I think the first thing I'm going to do is throw her in the shower and get her into the sun.

Catherine If I go back to the beginning, I could start it over again. I could go line by line, try and find a shorter way. I could try to make it... better.

Hal I always liked you. But then I thought, no, you don't flirt with your doctoral advisor's daughter.

Catherine Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean there isn't something in that backpack!

Claire Were you abusive?

Catherine This one cop who keep spitting on me when he talked. It was disgusting!

Claire Did you use the word "dickhead"?

Catherine Guh, I don't remember!

Claire Did you tell one cop to go ... have sex with the other cop's mother?

Catherine No!

Claire That's what they said.

Catherine Not ... with that phrasing.

Claire Did you strike one of them?

Catherine They were trying to come into the house ...

Claire Oh!

Catherine ... I may have pushed him a little.

Hal It's a, a result, a proof. I mean, it looks like a proof - I mean, it IS a proof, a very long proof, I haven't read through it all yet, or checked it, I mean, I don't even know if I could check it... if it's a proof of what I think it's a proof of, it's a very important proof.

Claire Mitch has become an excellent cook. It's like his hobby now. He buys all these gadgets, garlic, press, olive oil spread, every night there's something new. The other day he made the best vegetarian chili.

Claire Did you use that conditioner I brought you?

Catherine No. Shit. I forgot.

Claire Well, it's my favorite. You'll love it, Katie. I want you to try it.

Catherine I'll try it next time.

Claire You'll like it. It has jojoba.

Catherine What is jojoba?

Claire It's something they put in for healthy hair.

Catherine Hair is dead.

Claire What?

Catherine It's ... it's dead tissue. You can't make it healthy.

Claire Whatever. It's something that's good for your hair.

Catherine Like what? A chemical?

Claire No. It's organic.

Catherine It can be organic and still be a chemical.

Claire I don't know what it is.

Catherine Haven't you ever heard of organic chemistry?

Claire It makes my hair look, smell and feel good, and that is the extent of my information about it. You might like it if you decide to use it.

Catherine Thanks. I'll try it.

Catherine How many days have I lost? How can I get back to the place where I started? I'm outside a house, trying to find my way in, but it's locked and the blinds are down, and I've lost the key, and I can't remember what the rooms look like or where I put anything. And if I dare go inside, I wonder, will I ever be able to find my way out?

Hal I know you don't need anybody in your hair right now, but, um, someone's got to go through your dad's stuff.

Catherine There's nothing up there.

Hal There are a hundred and three notebooks.

Catherine He was a graphomaniac, Harold, do you know what that is?

Hal Yes, he wrote compulsively. Call me Hal.

Catherine It's like a monkey at a typewriter. A hundred and three notebooks full of bullshit.

Hal I'm prepared to look at every page. Are you?

Catherine No. I'm not crazy.

Hal Mathematicians are insane. I went to this conference in Toronto last fall, I have never been so exhausted in my life. 48 straight hours of partying, drinking, drugs, papers, lectures ...

Catherine Drugs?

Hal Amphetamines, mostly. I mean, I don't, but some of the older guys are really hooked. They think they need it.

Catherine Why?

Hal I guess there's this fear that your creativity peaks around twenty three, and then it's all downhill from there.

Catherine That's what my dad thought.

Hal I guess, all the really original work, it's all young guys.

Catherine Young guys?

Hal I mean, no, there are some women.

Catherine Really, who?

Hal Err, there's a woman at Stanford, I can't remember her name.

Catherine Sophie Germaine?

Hal Yeah,. I think I've seen her at meetings, but I don't think I've ever met her.

Catherine She was born in Paris in 1776.

Hal Then I've definitely never met her.

Hal Here's my suggestion, alright. I know three or four guys at the department, very sharp, disinterested people who knew your dad, knew his work. Let me take this to them, I'll tell them that we, we found something, something potentially major, we're not sure of the authorship, I'll sit down with them, we'll talk through it carefully, and then we'll figure out what we've got.

Robert Where's the problem?

Catherine The problem is, you are crazy.

Robert So?

Catherine So, you just said a crazy person would never admit that.

Robert Ah, I see.

Catherine So ...?

Robert It's a point.

Catherine So, how can you admit it?

Robert Well, because ... I'm also dead.

Hal Well, I'm gonna be late. Uh, some friends of mine are in this band. They're playing in a bar on Diversey, way down the bill. They go on about 2 to 2:30. I said I'd be there.

Catherine Great.

Hal They're all in the math department, they're really good. They have this song called "i", you'd like it, lower-case i, they just stand there and don't play anything for three minutes.

Catherine Imaginary number.

Hal It's a math joke ... you see why they're way down on the bill.

Catherine That's a long drive to see some nerds in a band.

Hal You know, I hate when people say that. It's not really that long of a drive.

Catherine So, they are nerds.

Hal Oh, they're raging geeks. But they're geeks who, you know, can dress themselves and hold down a job at a major university. Some of them have switched from glasses to contacts. They, uh, play sports, they play in a band, they get laid suprisingly often, so it makes you kinda question the whole set of terms. Geek, nerd, wonk, dilbert, paste eater ...

Catherine You're in this band, aren't you.

Hal Ok, yes. I play the drums. You wanna come? I never sing, I swear to God.

Robert Crazy people don't sit around wondering if they're nuts.

Catherine They don't?

Robert Of course not. They've got better things to do. Take it from me. A very good sign that you're crazy is the inability to ask the question "Am I crazy?".

Catherine Even if the answer is yes?

Robert Crazy people don't ask, you see?

Catherine Huh.

Hal Germaine primes. Like, double them and add one, you get another prime. Like, two is prime. Double plus one is five, also prime.

Hal I want to stay here with you. I want to spend the day with you. If at all possible, I want to spend as much time as I can, unless I'm coming on way too strong right now and scaring you, in which case I'll begin backpedalling immediately.

Catherine Still making those lists?

Claire Oh, it's a compulsion.

Catherine Do you ever cheat and tick off something you haven't actually done yet?

Claire Well, I would only be cheating myself.

Catherine Right.

Hal When your dad was younger than both of us, he made major contributions to three fields! ], algebraic geometry, non-linear operators... Look, if I came up with one tenth of the shit your dad produced, I could write my ticket to any math department, in the country.

Catherine It would be a real disaster for you, wouldn't it? You and the other geeks who barely finish their PhDs, who are marking time doing lame research, bragging about the conferences they go to, wow. Playing in an awful band, and whining that they're intellectually past it at 26, because they ARE!

Catherine I really don't need this, Claire. I'm fine, you know, I'm totally fine, and then you show up here with these questions like "Are you ok?" with that soothing tone of voice and "Oh, the poor policemen", I mean, I think the policemen can handle themselves. And bagels and bananas and jojoba, and "Come to New York!" and vegetarian chili?! I mean, it really pisses me off, so just save it!

Catherine I feel like I could crack open, like an egg, or one of those really smelly French cheeses that ooze out everywhere when you cut them.

Hal You look great.

Catherine Clare gave it to me.

Hal I ... I like it.

Catherine It doesn't really fit.

Hal Sure it does.

Catherine You can't prove it.

Hal Well, I could and try and disprove the opposite. I can prove that it doesn't not fit.

Catherine How?

Hal I could take a vote.

Hal Talking with students helps, writing in buses. Most of all, Kathy. Her refusal to let me be institutionalised, caring for me herself, has certainly saved my life. Made writing this possible, made it possible to imagine doing math again. Where does her strength come from? I can never repay her. Today is her birthday, she is 24. I'm taking her to dinner.

Drunken man To your old man. Hell of a guy.

Claire Thank you.

Drunken man Too bad he went nuts.

Catherine Let X equal the quantity of all quantities of X. Let X equal the cold. It is cold in December. The months of cold equal November through February. There are four months of cold, and four of heat, leaving four months of indeterminate temperature. In February it snows. In March the lake is a lake of ice. In September the students come back and the bookstores are full. Let X equal the month of full bookstores. The number of books approaches infinity as the number of months of cold approaches four. I will never be as cold now as I will in the future. The future of cold is infinite. The future of heat is the future of cold. The bookstores are infinite and so are never full except in September...

Catherine You think you've figured something out? You run over here all pleased with yourself because you changed your mind, now you're certain? You don't know anything! The book, the math, the dates, the writing, all that stuff you just decided with your buddies, it's just evidence, it doesn't prove anything!

Catherine It is forty pages long. I didn't memorize it. It is not a muffin recipe!

Catherine I didn't show this to anyone. I wanted you to be the first to see it, I didn't know I wanted that until last night. I trusted you. Was I wrong?

Catherine Wow, I can't believe how many people are here, I never knew he had this many friends. Where have you all been for the last five years? I guess to you guys he was already dead, right? I mean, what's a great man without his greatness? Just some old guy... So, you probably want to catch up on what you missed out on. Um, he used to read all day, he kept demanding more and more books, I was getting them out of the library by the car load, there were hundreds. And then, one day, I realised, he wasn't reading: he believed aliens were sending him messages through the dewey decimal numbers in the library books. He was trying to work out the code. He used to, um, shuffle around in his slippers, he talked to himself. He stank. I had to make sure he bathed, which... was embarrassing. Oh, and then he started writing, nineteen, twenty hours a day, I got him this huge case of notebooks, he used every one. I dropped out of school. You see, he was convinced that he was writing the most beautiful, elegant proofs. Proofs, like music. I'm glad he's dead.

Claire It's a funeral, but we don't have to be completely grim about it!

Catherine It was like, connecting dots. Some nights, I, I could connect, three or four of them, and some nights they'd be really far apart, I'd have no idea how to get to the next one, if there was the next one.