I don't believe Fermat had a proof. I think he fooled himself into thinking he had a proof.

I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about it all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night - and that went on for eight years.

I tried to fit it in with some previous broad conceptual understanding of some part of mathematics that would clarify the particular problem I was thinking about.

I really believed that I was on the right track, but that did not mean that I would necessarily reach my goal.

I realized that anything to do with Fermat's Last Theorem generates too much interest.

Pure mathematicians just love to try unsolved problems - they love a challenge.

I loved doing problems in school.

I know it's a rare privilege, but if one can really tackle something in adult life that means that much to you, then it's more rewarding than anything I can imagine.

I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.

Fermat said he had a proof.

But the best problem I ever found, I found in my local public library.

I'm sure that some of them will be very hard and I'll have a sense of achievement again, but nothing will mean the same to me - there's no other problem in mathematics that could hold me the way that this one did.

I had this rare privilege of being able to pursue in my adult life, what had been my childhood dream.

There's also a sense of freedom. I was so obsessed by this problem that I was thinking about if all the time - when I woke up in the morning, when I went to sleep at night, and that went on for eight years.