Everyone wants a hand in the outcome, a piece of the knowledge.

The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.

Error is far more common than fraud which probably comprises 1 percent or a tenth of a percent of the literature.

Why do we do basic research? To learn about ourselves.

Early on, it's good to develop the ability to write. Learning to write is a useful exercise, even if what you're writing about is not that relevant.

Three billion bases of DNA sequence can be put on a single compact disc and one will be able to pull a CD out of one's pocket and say, 'Here is a human being; it's me!'

In 15 years we'll have all the sequence, a list of the genes everyone has in common and those that differ among people. We know only something like a tenth of 1 percent of the sequence at the moment.