Quotes from Alex Bellos

Mathematicians have, according to Wright, been "unreasonably successful" in finding applications to apparently useless theorems, and often years after the theorems were first discovered.

The Munduruku have many things, but not enough numbers to count them. Cantor has provided us with as many numbers as we like, but there are no longer enough things to count.

While the idea of worshipping numbers may now seem bizarre, it perhaps reflects the scale of wonderment at the discovery of the first fragments of abstract mathematical knowledge. The excitement of learning that there is order in nature, when previously you were not aware that there was any at all, must have felt like a religious awakening.

Doesn't a singalong make the world seem a better place? It certainly makes football more fun to watch.

Evenness is an idea that precedes oddness.

Numbers are not impartial and straightforward; they have baggage.