The upside of crazy ideas...

“It was not at all unusual in theoretical physics to spend a lot of time on a speculative notion that turns out to be wrong. I do it all the time. Having a lot of crazy ideas is the secret to my success. Some of them turned out to be right!”
—Interactions by Sheldon Glashow, pg. 114

Terror, full agony of

I was alarmed by so formidable a social occasion, but less alarmed than I had been a few months earlier when I was left tête-à-tête with Mr. Gladstone. ... As I was the only male in the household, he and I were left alone together at the dinner table after the ladies retired. He made only one remark: “This is a very good port they have given me, but why have they given me it in a claret glass?” I did not know the answer and wished the earth would swallow me up. Since then I have never again felt the full agony of terror.

— Autobiography, Vol. 1 by Bertrand Russell