Inspiring

Friedrich E. Hirzebruch
Topology, Differential Geometry, Complex Analysis
University of Bonn; former Director of Max Planck Institute for Mathematics, Bonn

"In March of 1945, I became a soldier and in April, a prisoner of war, surviving in the meadows along the Rhine, always under the open sky in rain and sunshine, scribbling mathematics on toilet paper, the only paper available."

Source: http://seedmagazine.com/slideshow/mathematicians/