The public has a distorted view of science because children are taught in school that science is a collection of firmly established truths. In fact, science is not a collection of truths. It is a continuing exploration of mysteries.

It's amazing how much progress there's been in China, and also India. Those are the places that really matter - they're half of the world's population. They're the places where things are enormously better now than they were 50 years ago. And I don't see anything that's going to stop that.

Of course, long-distance running has to do with the fact that we're hunters.

Well germ warfare of course exists. There have been on a small scale... There have been, of course, a few people who got killed with anthrax right here in Princeton.

It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology.

To me, mathematics is like playing the violin. Some people can do it - others can't. If you don't have it, then there's no point in pretending.

Mathematics is really an art, not a science.