"Maybe at times I like to give the impression, to myself and hence to others, that I am the easy learner of things of life, wholly relaxed, "cool" and all that - just keen for learning, for eating the meal and welcome smilingly whatever comes with it's message, frustration and sorrow and destructiveness and the softer dishes alike. This of course is just humbug, an images d'Epinal which at whiles I'll kid myself into believing I am like. Truth is that I am a hard learner, maybe as hard and reluctant as anyone."
Grothendieck in Pursuing stacks (letters to Quillen).
