Status Updates From Un verdor terrible

". . . [S]he told him that one of the conjectures he had devised in his youth had finally been solved . . . He said he had lost all interest in mathematics.

. . . [She] asked him why he had isolated himself. Grothendieck told her he did not hate human beings, nor had he turned his back on the world. His isolation was neither an escape nor a rejection; he had done it for the protection of mankind . . ."