Daniel Tammet Professions : Writer Born : January 31, 1979 Browse All Authors Top 55 quotes by Daniel Tammet Life is going to be complex, and the only way we're able navigate our way through it at all is by living as best we can and absorbing those experiences and somehow making intuitive responses in future situations that resemble them in some way. Daniel Tammet able life-is way I recited Pi to 22,514 decimal points in five hours and nine minutes. I was able to do this because of weeks of study, aided by the unusual synaesthesic way my mind perceives numbers as complex multidimensional coloured and textured shapes. Daniel Tammet shapes mind numbers I do read a lot, and I think in recent years the ratio between the amount of non-fiction and fiction has tipped quite considerably. I did read fiction as a teenager as well, mostly because I was forced to read fiction, of course, to go through high school. Daniel Tammet teenager school thinking We will always have more to discover, more to invent, more to understand and that's much closer to art and literature than any science. Daniel Tammet literature art Logic obviously is important. You need to be able to figure things out, to go to the end of a particular problem. But intuition is very important because it references things that logic alone cannot. Daniel Tammet intuition important needs I'm inconsistent because I'm human. Daniel Tammet inconsistent humans There are always things I find difficult - being in crowds, remembering faces. I do like routines. I always travel with someone. My life in Avignon is a very quiet one. I have an apartment that looks over the whole city. I can drop into town, but a lot of the time I write from home. In some respects I still live a very quiet, simple life. Daniel Tammet simple home time life I think if I ever stopped pushing myself, I would revert quickly to quite repetitive, restrictive behaviour. But in pushing myself and concentrating on what I can do, I think I can contribute to society. And that gives me the desire to keep pushing, to see what I'm capable of. The thing to do is not to stop. Daniel Tammet myself think me society It was a gradual process, realising I was different. I remember at primary school getting a worksheet with sums printed on it. I thought that they must have run out of the right colour inks and sizes for the numbers, because they were all the same, which isn't how I experienced numbers at all. To me, nine is big and blue. Daniel Tammet me blue remember school Reading and discovering fiction has taught me how to empathise, understand falling in love and all those complex relationships that people have to deal with. Daniel Tammet me reading love people In my mind, numbers and words are far more than squiggles of ink on a page. They have form, color, texture and so on. They come alive to me, which is why as a young child I thought of them as my 'friends.' Daniel Tammet words me friends mind What I do find surprising is that other people do not think in the same way. I find it hard to imagine a world where numbers and words are not how I experience them! Daniel Tammet words experience people world I was incredibly lucky that my first book found a large and loyal readership. It changed my life - from being a very withdrawn adult to living in Paris as a full-time writer. It has also given me enormous confidence. Daniel Tammet my-life me confidence life Aesthetics - rather than reason - shapes our thought processes. First comes aesthetics, then logic. 'Thinking in Numbers' is not about an attempt to impress the reader but to include the reader, draw the reader in, by explaining my experiences - the beauty I feel in a prime number, for example. Daniel Tammet feel thought beauty thinking Six is the hardest number for me to experience, the smallest. It's the absence of something - it's cold, dark, almost like a black hole. If someone tells me they are depressed, I might imagine myself in the hole of a six to help me empathise. Daniel Tammet myself me experience black Similar Authors Ihab Hassan writer Ingmar Bergman writer Isabella Bird writer Ivan E. Coyote writer Al Feldstein writer Bert Sugar writer All Authors