Marcus du Sautoy

My big thesis is that although the world looks messy and chaotic, if you translate it into the world of numbers and shapes, patterns emerge and you start to understand why things are the way they are.

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

The reason why we do maths is because it's like poetry. It's about patterns, and that really turned me on. It made me feel that maths was in tune with the other things I liked doing.

Acting is a masochistic form of exhibitionism. It is not quite the occupation of an adult.

As a young child my attention span was, as I remember it, rather short.

Most detective story readers are an educated audience and know there are only a certain number of plots. The interest lies in what the writer does with them.