At lunch Francis [Crick] winged into the Eagle to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life.

[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead.

I never dreamed that in my lifetime my own genome would be sequenced.

I wish there would be more movies about scientists.

Knowing "why" (an idea) is more important than learning "what" (the fact).

If I had been married earlier in life, I wouldn't have seen the double helix. I would have been taking care of the kids on Saturday. On the other hand, I was lonely a lot of the time.

I'm basically a libertarian. I don't want to restrict anyone from doing anything unless it's going to harm me. I don't want [to] pass a law stopping someone from smoking. It's just too dangerous. You lose the concept of a free society. Since we are genetically so diverse and our brains are so different, we're going to have different aspirations.