"I told Wheeler that I had had a number of conversations with Bell about quantum theory. "He’s a wonderful fellow," Wheeler noted. "Did he say to you," Wheeler asked, laughing, "‘I’d rather be clear and wrong, than foggy and right’?" I told Wheeler that Bell had not used exactly those words, but that it certainly sounded like him. I also told Wheeler that from the time that Bell began to study the quantum theory, he had conceptual problems with it, and that I had asked Bell if, at that time, he thought that the theory might simply be wrong—to which Bell had answered, "I hesitated to think it might be wrong, but I knew that it was rotten." At this, Wheeler burst into a marvelous peal of laughter. The idea of the young Bell rebelling against the "rottenness" of the quantum theory struck Wheeler as incredibly funny."