It was eerie. I saw myself in that machine. I never thought my work would come to this.

Physics filled me with awe, put me in touch with a sense of original causes. Physics brought me closer to God. That feeling stayed with me throughout my years in science. Whenever one of my students came to me with a scientific project, I asked only one question, 'Will it bring you nearer to God?'

It was eerie. I saw myself in that machine. I never thought my work would come to this.

My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school, So? Did you learn anything today? But not my mother. Izzy, she would say, did you ask a good question today? That difference - asking good questions - made me become a scientist.

There are questions which illuminate, and there are those that destroy. I was always taught to ask the first kind.

[Science is] a great game. It is inspiring and refreshing. The playing field is the universe itself.

I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up and they keep their curiosity.