1.1. Banach would spend most of his days in cafés, not only in the company of others but also by himself. He liked the noise and the music. They did not prevent him from concentrating and thinking. There were cases when, after the cafés closed for the night, he would walk over to the railway station where the cafeteria was open around the clock. There, over a glass of beer, he would think about his problems.

1.2. Banach turned out mathematical ideas so quickly that he should have had three secretaries to compose his papers. That was why Banach published only a small part of the theorems he had invented. Not because he did not want to, but because all the time he had new ideas.

1.3. During the meetings in the Scottish Café we talked only about mathematics. Banach really was interested in nothing but mathematics. I will quote his very characteristic declaration. We were talking in the Scottish Café; I think there were only the two of us. The subject was the teaching of mathematics in secondary school. And Banach said: "Mathematics is too sharp a tool to give to children. To train the brain in logic there is nothing better than Latin grammar." He was really convinced about it, he really thought it was the best way. He was of the opinion that teaching advanced mathematics to the pupils at school was premature.

1.4. I think Banach did not care much for making his lectures very clear. His opinion was: "If you can't manage it, you need not be a mathematician." Certainly, everything that Banach presented was correct. Everything that should have been said, was said, but he didn't explain the details too carefully.

1.5. One day I met Banach in the Scottish Café. Banach said: "I have an appointment with Orlicz here. I am sure he will not come. But it is worthwhile to make an appointment with Orlicz, because it is interesting to hear what reason for not coming he will give you."

1.6. I had an incident with Banach like this: for a meeting of the mathematical society, I proposed a talk on multiplicative and continuous functionals. I am delivering the talk and Banach enters the room, slightly late, with an incredibly sullen face. I noticed that Banach was angry. He listened with extreme attention and his face changed. When I finished, Banach took the floor and said: "I also dealt with this problem; you did it in a totally different way, and you did it well." I received his opinion with gladness. The next day after this meeting, Stożek (who was not at the meeting) asked: "Was Banach there?" I said "Yes, he was." He said "I did not want to scare you in advance; he was very angry when he found out what you were to talk about. He said: 'I am dealing with this; I must have told someone, and now Turowicz is presenting it as his own.'" Banach came with the intention of giving me a hard time. Luckily the idea of the proof was completely different from his, therefore he praised me and did not make a scene. ... Since then, Banach was very friendly towards me.

2.1. On the occasion of the 600th anniversary of the Jagiellonian University in 1964 Ważewski organised a meeting that included, among others, Kolmogorov and Nemytskii. I was sitting close to Kolmogorov and I wanted to talk with him. I wanted to know his opinion about Bourbaki. He answered my question rather evasively, saying that among the Bourbaki people there were many authors of very good papers and that besides there was a lot of publicity in it. It was clear that he did not want to answer my question. Moreover, there was one professor from Berlin sitting close to him, who, in fact, did not allow anybody else to speak to Kolmogorov.

3.1. I worked with Mazur. We wrote one paper together, which was never published. It was in spring 1939. When we finished it I asked Mazur to give me the manuscript and suggested that I would translate it into French for publication. He answered that perhaps we would have some better ideas and kept the paper. Several years later, after the war, he told Professor Ważewski that he found this paper in a drawer. Then I wrote to him and asked him to send me this paper. I suggested that perhaps some theorems contained in it still had not been published by anybody. As I expected, I did not get any answer.

3.2. ... for Mazur only two things were interesting: mathematics and communism. Before the war it was not known that he was a member of the Communist Party. I did not know it, although we had a very good relationship and we met each other frequently. After the war he was very indignant to me, because I took the holy orders. Our friendship had to be discontinued. He would not admit his party connections, but in 1939 they quickly became known. This was why, when the Polish Academy of Sciences was created after the war, he immediately became its main scientific secretary. He held this position for a very short time, because he never took the trouble to answer letters. He was interested in mathematics above all, and administrative jobs were of no account for him.

3.3. Mazur wrote his first paper while still an undergraduate and he submitted it to Steinhaus. The paper was to be read by Mazur at a meeting of the Lwów Scientific Society but only hours before the meeting Steinhaus summoned Mazur to tell him that he had handed him four blank sheets of paper. Students could only afford cheap quality yellow paper and Mazur had diluted his ink with water to make it last longer. Steinhaus said to Mazur, "Well, Mr Mazur, perhaps there is something written here after all. But if you intend to devote your life to scientific pursuits, why don't you first supply yourself with white paper and black ink."

4.1. I was the secretary of the Polish Mathematical Society when Lebesgue was to come to Lvov. Before a meeting of the Society I was talking with Schauder and I told him that Lebesgue would come. He reacted "What?! Lebesgue is coming?! He will present a lecture?! It must be announced!" And he said: "Where is the secretary?!" He turned away from me and started shouting: "Turowicz, where is Turowicz?!" He was so tremendously absent-minded. He knew me and it was not a joke, that's simply what he was like.

4.2. I have already told you that Schauder was absentminded. Once I met him in the street, he was accompanied by a student. We stopped for a moment and talked a little. When we finished, he said "good-bye" to this student, he didn't say "good-bye" to me and he went away with the student.

5.1. Śleszyński's lectures, for instance, were overdone. He would go on making comments on problems that did not require explanation.

5.2. Śleszyński had a very interesting opinion about the publication of mathematical results. He used to say: "The point of civilisation is the exchange of ideas. And where is this exchange, if everybody writes and nobody reads." According to his opinion, everybody should work out his results very carefully, but instead of presenting them, he should seal them up for delivery to a suitable institution. After the death of the mathematician a competent jury would decide what is worth publishing and what is not. The reason behind this opinion was that people published papers not worth publishing.

6.1. [A German who came to the Majdanek camp where Stark was imprisoned] showed him a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations and asked him how to solve this problem. Stark replied that this is a non-standard set for which there is no ready-made solution, but it can be solved numerically. The German asked if Stark would solve it. He replied that he cannot, because he doesn't have the necessary books, tables, arithmometer, and at the same time he has to work like other prisoners. The German replied that they would release Stark from other works and that he would receive the necessary help ...

7.1. I considered Steinhaus to be a brilliant mathematician. I was always surprised by his ability to grasp applied problems in a mathematical way. I remember how he explained to me how he estimated Germany's losses during the war. He read the obituaries in German newspapers, which said "the second son, the third son ..." Using statistics and information about the number of families with two sons, three sons, etc., he managed to guess the approximate losses of the German army. He had very original ideas and knew a lot.

7.2. Once, when somebody was decorated with a medal, Steinhaus said: "Now I know what to do in order to be awarded a medal. Nothing, but for a very long time."