I was taught the method for advancement is not quick or simple.

I was taught the method for advancement is not quick or simple.

More and more, I feel the need for a house and a garden.

I have frequently been questioned, especially by women, of how I could reconcile family life with a scientific career. Well, it has not been easy.

I am among those who think that science has great beauty. A scientist in his laboratory is not only a technician: he is also a child placed before natural phenomena which impress him like a fairy tale. We should not allow it to be believed that all scientific progress can be reduced to mechanisms, machines, gearings, even though such machinery has its own beauty.

Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.

Sometimes my courage fails me and I think I ought to stop working, live in the country and devote myself to gardening. But I am held by a thousand bonds, and I don't know when I shall be able to arrange things otherwise. Nor do I know whether, even by writing scientific books, I could live without the laboratory.