In Paris, friend of Bequerel’s, a young physicist-chemist couple named Pierre and Marie Curie, began to scour the natural world for even more powerful chemical sources of X-rays. Pierre and Marie (then Maria Sklodowska, a penniless Polish immigrant living in a garret in Paris) had met at the Sorbonne and been drawn to each other because of a common interest in magnetism.

I think when we use 'stress', we are often using a kind of dummy word to try to fit many different things into one big category.

Most discoveries even today are a combination of serendipity and of searching.

There is a duality in recognising what an incredible disease it is - in terms of its origin, that it emerges out of a normal cell. It's a reminder of what a wonderful thing a normal cell is. In a very cold, scientific sense, I think a cancer cell is a kind of biological marvel.

All cancers are alike but they are alike in a unique way.

Writing anything as an expert is really poisonous to the writing process, because you lose the quality of discovery.

When you immerse yourself in medicine you realise that hope is not absolute. It's not that simple.