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.

It is always with excitement that I wake up in the morning wondering what my intuition will toss up to me, like gifts from the sea. I work with it and rely on it. It's my partner.

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.

The art of science is as important as so-called technical science. You need both. It's this combination that must be recognized and acknowledged and valued.

When I worked on the polio vaccine, I had a theory. I guided each [experiment] by imagining myself in the phenomenon in which I was interested. The intuitive realm . . . the realm of the imagination guides my thinking.

Nothing happens quite by chance. It's a question of accretion of information and experience.

I think of evolution as an error-making and error-correcting process, and we are constantly learning from experience.