Daniel Tammet quotes

Daniel Tammet is a British writer, linguist, and autistic savant famous for his extraordinary mathematical and language abilities. His memoirs and books have inspired people worldwide and provided new insights into autism and the power of the human mind. He continues to share his unique perspective through his writing and public talks. Here are 33 of his quotes:

I had eventually come to understand that friendship was a delicate, gradual process that mustn't be rushed or seized upon but allowed and encouraged to take its course over time. I pictured it as a butterfly, simultaneously beautiful and fragile, that once afloat belonged to the air and any attempt to grab at it would only destroy it.

Daniel Tammet

I know from my own experience that there is much more to 'intelligence' than an IQ number. In fact, I hesitate to believe that any system could really reflect the complexity and uniqueness of one person's mind, or meaningfully describe the nature of his or her potential.

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

Every culture has contributed to maths just as it has contributed to literature. It's a universal language; numbers belong to everyone.

Daniel Tammet

When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think.

Daniel Tammet

My relationship with scientists has changed. Now, they consider me more of a peer than a guinea pig, and I'm part of the scientific discussion.

Daniel Tammet

I consider social skills a bit like learning a language. I've been practising it for so long over so many years I've almost lost my accent.

Daniel Tammet

37 is a lumpy number, a bit like porridge. Six is very small and dark and cold, and whenever I was little trying to understand what sadness is I would imagine myself inside a number six and having that experience of cold and darkness. Similarly, number four is a shy number.

Daniel Tammet

My autism is a very mild form. It was diagnosed at the age of 25, partly because it wasn't diagnosable as a teenager (this is Asperger's syndrome, specifically). But there were certainly traits within that condition, within the autism spectrum in general, especially at the high functioning end, that I think are best looked at as pluses.

Daniel Tammet

I have never played the lottery in my life and never will. Voltaire described lotteries as a tax on stupidity. More specifically, I think, on innumeracy.

Daniel Tammet

There is no such thing as an average person. They really are guidelines for people to grapple with the unknown, and we can always surprise expectations.

Daniel Tammet

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

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

It was hard for me to find my voice because I was, for so long, absorbed in my own world.

Daniel Tammet

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

I certainly have routines in my day-to-day life that are important to me and still give me feelings of security and control, but the capacity to break out of them every so often as I travel has given me a second wind.

Daniel Tammet

From 'Embracing the Wide Sky', I went to the States, to Canada and to different parts of Europe as well. I gave interviews in several languages.

Daniel Tammet

I love music. I have a fondness for Chopin, and I very much like his 'Raindrop Prelude.'

Daniel Tammet

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

I did have a very restricted, regimented life. There was a kind of happiness there, a contentment, but it was a small happiness within very clear and delineated borders.

Daniel Tammet

When I achieved the European record for reciting pi in 2004, this captured the imagination of Professor Simon Baron-Cohen in Cambridge and he finally diagnosed me with Asperger's that year.

Daniel Tammet

I feel traveling certainly does broaden the mind. In my case certainly I feel more confident. It gives you a new perspective on the world.

Daniel Tammet