It was like stepping on to an escalator; I could do anything. I was just made for science.

The idea that ageing was subject to control was completely unexpected.

Generally, older people in their fifties, sixties, and seventies are running most countries and are CEOs of corporations. Which isn't to say there aren't entrepreneurs, but if the young were better in every respect, there'd be no reason for the old. Our life span reflects our particular life strategy.

Ageing is very exciting. But if I didn't work on ageing, I'd want to work on the brain. There are really cool techniques you can use now. And bioinformatics. The methods you can use for comparing large data sets - that's so powerful.

Age is the single largest risk factor for an enormous number of diseases. So if you can essentially postpone aging, then you can have beneficial effects on a whole wide range of disease.

You would think that UV just causes mutations, but it doesn't, you need a gene to be active for it.

You could have two completely different careers if you could stay healthy to 90. How fascinating that would be.