I'm not sure whether I could win a Nobel Prize or not, but the Nobel Committee called me, and, 'You got the Nobel Prize.' So, I was so, so happy, and I was so surprised.
My first reaction on being awarded the Nobel Prize was, actually, I thought of Fischer Black, my colleague. He unfortunately had passed away. And there was no doubt in my mind that if he were still alive, he would have been a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize.
If I had not been discriminated against or had not suffered persecution, I would never have received the Nobel Prize.
There must have been something in the air of Gary that led one into economics: the first Nobel Prize winner, Paul Samuelson, was also from Gary, as were several other distinguished economists.
I think it is true to say that I am not the first Nobel Prize winner in economics to have little formal training in economics.
Two Americans have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics. They are the first to figure out all the charges on their telephone bill.
National Review once opined, many years ago, that, every year, the Nobel peace prize should go to the U.S. secretary of defense: The American military is the number-one guarantor of peace in the world. But maybe something like a Nobel freedom prize would be a more appropriate award for Reagan than a peace prize.
Two years ago I was on the train from Berlin to Frankfurt when I heard that the Nobel Peace Prize had been awarded to my close friend, the writer Liu Xiaobo, who is imprisoned in China. To me it was confirmation that universal values and a moral code do exist, and that the point of the Nobel Prize is to encourage writers to stand up for this moral code. Last Thursday I was once again on the train from Berlin to Frankfurt when I heard that the Nobel Prize for Literature had gone to Mo Yan. He is a state poet. I am utterly bewildered. Do these universal values not exist after all?
The Nobel Prize is worth $1.5 million, but that's not the issue. Do the distinguished scientists who win the Nobel Prize need the money? Probably not. The honor is more important the money, and that's the case with the prize for African leadership as well.
As a Nobel Prize winner I cannot but regret that the award was never given to Mark Twain, nor to Henry James, speaking only of my own countrymen. Greater writers than these also did not receive the prize. I would have been happy - happier - today if the prize had been given to that beautiful writer Isak Dinesen.
[ Bob Dylan] should let the Nobel Prize Committee know if he is accepting it or not. He will not be the first one who declines the prize for political or personal reasons. He should just tell them.
I was absolutely convinced that I wouldn't win the Nobel Prize. My impression was that the Nobel Prize in Literature was given to people more or less affiliated with, let's say, socialist ideas, and that was not my case.
People ask me often [whether] the Nobel Prize [was] the thing you were aiming for all your life, and I say that would be crazy. Nobody would aim for a Nobel Prize because, if you didn't get it, your whole life would be wasted. What we were aiming at was getting people well, and the satisfaction of that is much greater than any prize you can get.
The Nobel Prize confers on an individual an authority which in economics no man ought to possess.
I thought of my father and felt a deep sorrow that he should no longer be alive, and that I could not go to him and tell him that I had been awarded the Nobel Prize. I knew that no one would have been happier than he to hear this.
The reproduction of mankind is a great marvel and mystery. Had God consulted me in the matter, I should have advised him to continue the generation of the species by fashioning them out of clay.