I wanted to explore cancer not just biologically, but metaphorically. The idea that tuberculosis in the 19th century possessed the same kind of frightening and decaying quality was very interesting to me, and it seemed that one could explore the idea that every age defined its own illness.

Cell culture is a little like gardening. You sit and you look at cells, and then you see something and say, 'You know, that doesn't look right'.

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

A positive attitude does not cure cancer, any more than a negative one causes it.

Cancer was not disorganized chromosomal chaos. It was organized chromosomal chaos

I believe the biggest breakthroughs on cancer could come from brilliant researchers based in India.

In the laboratory, we call this the six-degrees-of-separation-from-cancer rule: you can ask any biological question, no matter how seemingly distant-what makes the heart fail, or why worms age, or even how birds learn songs-and you will end up, in fewer than six genetic steps, connecting with a proto-oncogene or tumor suppressor.