Bryson Chapter 4: QCCQ

Quote:
 "Newton was a decidedly odd  figure—brilliant beyond measure, but solitary, joyless, prickly
to the point of paranoia, famously distracted,and capable of the most riveting strangeness."

Comment:
 I chose this quote because I really enjoyed the word choice that was chosen to describe Newton. I though it was powerful and attention grabbing and the author did a good job of kind of painting a picture of what he was like. The reason why I liked it was because I had never heard an interpretation of Newton such as this one nor a description of him as on point and interesting.  I like how it says " he was prickly to the pint of paranoia" it makes the reader think what exactly is meant by that, as well at the other descriptions used.

Connection:
I connected to this quote because for the math in two minutes project my partner and I worked on what the definition of gravity was and we covered Sir Isaac Newton quite a bit. I enjoyed it because it made me think back on what i recently learned about him.

Question:
I would like to know what each description means and why those words specifically were chosen.