When you inoculate children with a polio vaccine, you don't sleep well for two or three months.

There is a moment of conception and a moment of birth, but between them there is a long period of gestation.

My life is pretty well at peace, and the profession is more of an avocation. It's a calling, if you like, rather than a job. I do what I feel impelled to do, as an artist would.

My job is to help people see what I see. If it's of value, fine. And, if it's not of value, then at least I've done what I can do.

Evolution favors the survival of the wisest.

I do what I feel impelled to do, as an artist would. Scientists function in the same way. I see all these as creative activities, as all part of the process of discovery. Perhaps that's one of the characteristics of what I call the evolvers, any subset of the population who keep things moving in a positive, creative, constructive way, revealing the truth and beauty that exists in life and in nature.

As a child I was not interested in science. I was merely interested in things human, the human side of nature, if you like, and I continue to be interested in that. That's what motivates me.