Daniel Tammet Quotes

I only think in live action.

I have a visual mind, so when I read a book, I get an instant picture in my head and it's very clear.

Squaring numbers is a symmetrical process that I like very much. And when I divide one number by another, say, 13 divided by 97, I see a spiral rotating downwards in larger and larger loops that seem to warp and curve. The shapes coalesce into the right number. I never write anything down.

The soul never thinks without a picture.

Language for me narrates the pictures in my mind.

Sometimes, I believe I actually see the wheels in my brain turning.

When I'm problem-solving with something, I have, effectively, a CAD program in my head that's like a room that has specific qualities to it that I go to some deal of effort to populate. Textures and smells, something like that.

If I can't picture it, I can't understand it.

For imagination sets the goal picture which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of will, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.

People seem to have trouble with the imagination. They can't believe that you can just pull things out of your brain like that.

An object is not first imagined or thought about and then expected or willed, but in being actively expected it is imagined as future and in being willed it is thought.

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

In my own research when I'm working with equations, I never feel like I really understand what I'm doing if I'm solely relying on the mathematics for my understanding. I need to have a visual picture in my mind. I'm constantly translating from the math to some intuitive mind's-eye picture.

A short story is something that I think can be intuited and envisioned and held in your mind almost at once.

Language for me narrates the pictures in my mind. When I work on designing livestock equipment I can test run that equipment in my head like 3-D virtual reality. In fact, when I was in college I used to think that everybody was able to do that.

My art originates from hallucinations only I can see. I translate the hallucinations and obsessional images that plague me into sculptures and paintings.

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.'

Well, I'll say I have an incredible ability to fantasize - I really do. I don't have to have things tangible to be able to see them, and therefore I enjoy so many things, because they're in my mind.

My mind sort of works like a search engine. You ask me something, and I start seeing pictures.

I have trouble writing if I can't picture how things are going to look.

I write on a visual canvas, 'seeing' a scene in my thoughts before translating it into language, so I'm a visual junkie.

When I write, I see the pages in my head, not the words.

When I was 5 years old, I saw people dancing in my head. In college, I would choreograph for the cultural shows, and in my notes, I would actually create formations of people. It was how my whole brain worked.

I'm a very visual thinker, so the characters are running through my head, doing what they're doing when I'm writing them. And there'll be moments where I'll just kind of throw a look off to the side as if I'm talking to one of the characters. It's always been something that I've had with me since I was a little kid.

Sometimes I see patterns in my mind. I dream about them at night. They drive me crazy.