I cannot think of a greater symbol of human resistance and courage than our Nobel laureate colleague Andrei Sakharov.

After forty years in the lab, I was asked in 1991 to become president of The Rockefeller University. Unlike a working scientist, being president for seven years provided an opportunity to interact with scientists in many different fields and broadened my scope of the natural sciences.

In the early Sixties, having begun to describe the physiology of cells in the adult cat visual cortex, David Hubel and I decided to investigate how the highly specific response properties of cortical cells emerged during postnatal development.

It takes a long time for a country to build a strong base in science, but only a short time to destroy it. Germany was a sad example. It was a world leader in the sciences for more than a century, until its science base was demolished during the Nazi era, and the country ceded its position to the United States.

I tell the truth where it's the ethical thing to do, but in terms of entertainment, there's a certain fun and enjoyment that can be added to the experience by a few judicious lies.

Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.

I'd been eating fast food all my life without thinking about it. And the more I learned about the subject, the more intrigued I became.

As we get more technically driven, the importance of people becomes more than it's ever been before. You have to utilize who you are in your work. Nobody else can do that: nobody else can pull from your background, from your parents, your upbringing, your whole life experience.