"Today, the theory of evolution is an accepted fact for everyone but a fundamentalist minority, whose objections are based not on reasoning but on doctrinaire adherence to religious principles."

"People say we are playing God. My answer is: If we don't play God, who will?"

"We're not all equal, it's simply not true. That isn't science."

"My parents made it clear that I should never display even the slightest disrespect to individuals who had the power to let me skip a half grade or move into more challenging classes. While it was all right for me to know more about a topic than my sixth-grade teacher had ever learned, questioning her facts could only lead to trouble."

"[As a young man ] I came to the conclusion that the church was just a bunch of fascists that supported Franco. I stopped going on Sunday mornings and watched the birds with my father instead."

"I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood. Perhaps in other company he is that way, but I have never had reason so to judge him."

"At lunch Francis winged into the Eagle to tell everyone within hearing distance that we had found the secret of life."

"The ever quickening advances of science made possible by the success of the Human Genome Project will also soon let us see the essences of mental disease. Only after we understand them at the genetic level can we rationally seek out appropriate therapies for such illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disease."

"It's necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant."