Mathematics is a place where you can do things which you can't do in the real world.

The point is with good maths skills you have just wonderful opportunities and if you don't have good maths skills, there are just so many things that you won't be able to do.

Primes are the atoms of the arithmetic - the hydrogen and oxygen of the world of numbers

You know, I'm not terribly fast at my times tables, because that's not what I think mathematics is about.

The power of mathematics is often to change one thing into another, to change geometry into language.

I think science is a foreign land for many people, so I think of my role as an ambassador's job.

I'm obviously attuned to pick up mathematics whenever I can see it. But in Mozart there is a lot of conscious use of mathematical symbolism and numbers in order to try and give messages.