We don't need to clear the 4 to 6 percent of the Earth's surface remaining in tropical rain forests, with most of the animal and plant species living there.

The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.

There doesn't seem to be any other way of creating the next green revolution without GMOs.

The human race is not divided into two opposing camps of good and evil. It is made up of those who are capable of learning and those who are incapable of doing so.

A paradigm shift is the best a scientist can hope for. Whenever I smell an opportunity like that, I go after it. You have a new discovery that something's working in a different way than you thought. And this is particularly true in molecular and cell biology, which is structural biology and has the least potential for controversy and partisanship among the biological scientists. You're dealing with a concrete object that's either there or not there.

Biophilia, if it exists, and I believe it exists, is the innately emotional affiliation of human beings to other living organisms.

In science, obsessiveness under psychological control can be a virtue.