A Beautiful Mind

by

Sylvia Nasar

John David Stier is the son of Eleanor Stier and John Nash, born in 1953. John David has a troubled childhood, since Nash—who was unmarried to his mother and was not listed as his father on his birth certificate—is frequently absent from his life, and Eleanor struggles to find employment. John David is shuttled between foster homes, some abusive, before returning to live with Eleanor as a teenager. He later becomes a registered nurse, much to the disappointment of his father, who hoped that he would become a scientist. Nash and John David reunite later in Nash’s life, during Nash’s remission from schizophrenia. Throughout A Beautiful Mind, John David often expresses his resentment of Nash, who was a distant and uncaring father during his childhood, though he also acknowledges that their relationship improved after Nash’s recovery.

John David Stier Quotes in A Beautiful Mind

The A Beautiful Mind quotes below are all either spoken by John David Stier or refer to John David Stier. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Mental Illness, Recovery, and the Quest for Knowledge Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

Underneath the brilliant surface of [Nash’s] life, all was chaos and contradiction: his involvements with other men; a secret mistress and a neglected illegitimate son; a deep ambivalence toward the wife who adored him, the university that nurtured him, even his country; and, increasingly, a haunting fear of failure. And the chaos eventually welled up, spilled over, and swept away the fragile edifice of his carefully constructed life.

Related Characters: Sylvia Nasar (speaker), John Forbes Nash Jr., Alicia Larde (Alicia Nash) , Eleanor Stier , John David Stier
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

Nash displayed a rather curious inconsistency in his attitude and behavior toward his son. At the time of his birth, he had reacted in neither of the ways one might have expected of a young man confronted with the pregnancy of a woman with whom he has recently begun sleeping, eschewing both the high road that would have led to a shotgun wedding, as well as the more commonly elected low road of flat-out denying his paternity and simply vanishing from his girlfriend’s life. He doubtless behaved selfishly, even callously […] But…it is natural to conclude that Nash, like the rest of us, needed to love and be loved, and that a tiny, helpless infant, his son, drew him irresistibly.

Related Characters: Sylvia Nasar (speaker), John Forbes Nash Jr., Eleanor Stier , John David Stier
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 50 Quotes

It is a life resumed, but time did not stand still while Nash was dreaming. Like Rip Van Winkle, Odysseus, and countless fictional space travelers, he wakes to find that the world he left behind has moved on in his absence. The brilliant young men that were are retiring or dying. The children are middle-aged. The slender beauty, his wife, is now a mature woman in her sixties. And there is his own seventieth birthday fast approaching. […] The Nobel cannot restore what has been lost.

Related Characters: Sylvia Nasar (speaker), John Forbes Nash Jr., Alicia Larde (Alicia Nash) , John David Stier, John Charles Martin Nash (Johnny)
Page Number: 381
Explanation and Analysis:
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A Beautiful Mind PDF

John David Stier Quotes in A Beautiful Mind

The A Beautiful Mind quotes below are all either spoken by John David Stier or refer to John David Stier. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Mental Illness, Recovery, and the Quest for Knowledge Theme Icon
).
Prologue Quotes

Underneath the brilliant surface of [Nash’s] life, all was chaos and contradiction: his involvements with other men; a secret mistress and a neglected illegitimate son; a deep ambivalence toward the wife who adored him, the university that nurtured him, even his country; and, increasingly, a haunting fear of failure. And the chaos eventually welled up, spilled over, and swept away the fragile edifice of his carefully constructed life.

Related Characters: Sylvia Nasar (speaker), John Forbes Nash Jr., Alicia Larde (Alicia Nash) , Eleanor Stier , John David Stier
Page Number: 16
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 23 Quotes

Nash displayed a rather curious inconsistency in his attitude and behavior toward his son. At the time of his birth, he had reacted in neither of the ways one might have expected of a young man confronted with the pregnancy of a woman with whom he has recently begun sleeping, eschewing both the high road that would have led to a shotgun wedding, as well as the more commonly elected low road of flat-out denying his paternity and simply vanishing from his girlfriend’s life. He doubtless behaved selfishly, even callously […] But…it is natural to conclude that Nash, like the rest of us, needed to love and be loved, and that a tiny, helpless infant, his son, drew him irresistibly.

Related Characters: Sylvia Nasar (speaker), John Forbes Nash Jr., Eleanor Stier , John David Stier
Page Number: 179
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 50 Quotes

It is a life resumed, but time did not stand still while Nash was dreaming. Like Rip Van Winkle, Odysseus, and countless fictional space travelers, he wakes to find that the world he left behind has moved on in his absence. The brilliant young men that were are retiring or dying. The children are middle-aged. The slender beauty, his wife, is now a mature woman in her sixties. And there is his own seventieth birthday fast approaching. […] The Nobel cannot restore what has been lost.

Related Characters: Sylvia Nasar (speaker), John Forbes Nash Jr., Alicia Larde (Alicia Nash) , John David Stier, John Charles Martin Nash (Johnny)
Page Number: 381
Explanation and Analysis: