John Littlewood
Overview
Quotations
It was Mr. Littlewood (I believe) who remarked that "every positive integer was one of his personal friends."
(about Srinivasa Ramanujan|Ramanujan) p. lvii of
Littlewood's Miscellany is a revised and expanded version of A Mathematician's Miscellany, published 1953.
'The surprising thing about this paper is that a man who could write it--would.'
Note quotation marks: Littlewood is repeating a joke without attribution. "Cross-purposes, Unconscious Assumptions, Howlers, Misprints, etc.", p. 59
I recall once saying that when I had given the same lecture several times I couldn't help feeling that they really ought to know it by now.
"Academic Life", p. 135
A good mathematical joke is better, and better mathematics, than a dozen mediocre papers.
"Introduction to A Mathematician's Miscellany", p. 24