I think we have to believe we are here for some purpose, and I know there are many cynics who will deny it, but they don't live as if they deny it.

By the time I was 12 or 13, I was studying biochemistry textbooks.

A Swedish newspaper reporter called and said, You've been awarded the Prize. I was quite sure it was a practical joke.

I get curious about new things. My real strength is going into a field that has not been investigated before, and finding new approaches to it.

As soon as you go into any biological process in any real detail, you discover it's open-ended in terms of what needs to be found out about it.

The central moral issue of science is that we do not have a science of peace and hardly know where to begin in building one.

I have many shortcomings. I feel very lucky to have been able to have what I've had.