James D. Watson Quotes
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I have a son, who is a... not an ordinary form of schizophrenia, but clearly, cannot take care of himself. And the great fear of then, of all parents is, when the parents die, who takes care of your child? And the answer is: they become homeless.
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Genetically modified foods are good.
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I wanted to see if I could write a good book.
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It's necessary to be slightly underemployed if you are to do something significant.
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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.
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I had become monomaniacal about DNA only in 1951 when I had just turned 23 and as a postdoctoral fellow was temporarily in Naples attending a small May meeting on biologically important macromolecules.
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It's so difficult writing about living people.
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DNA was my only gold rush. I regarded DNA as worth a gold rush.
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I wish there would be more movies about scientists.
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Here at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, we have genetically rearranged various viruses and bacteria as part of our medical research. In fact, we have been able to create entirely new types of DNA molecules by splicing together the genetic information from different organisms - recombinant DNA.
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My whole life has been basically trying to find intelligent students or, you know, highly motivated students and giving them an opportunity to do good science.
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If we could honestly promise young couples that we knew how to give them offspring with superior character, why should we assume they would decline? Common sense tells us that if scientists find ways to greatly improve human capabilities, there will no stopping the public from happily seizing them.
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If you go into science, I think you better go in with a dream that maybe you, too, will get a Nobel Prize. It's not that I went in and I thought I was very bright and I was going to get one, but I'll confess, you know, I knew what it was.
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My heroes were never scientists. They were Graham Greene and Christopher Isherwood, you know, good writers.
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As an educator, I have always striven to see that the fruits of the American Dream are available to all.
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I've had strong opinions probably since I was born. It makes you unpopular, but what can you do?
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The luckiest thing that ever happened to me was that my father didn't believe in God, and so he had no hang-ups about souls.
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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.
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I first became aware of Charles Darwin and evolution while still a schoolboy growing up in Chicago. My father and I had a passion for bird-watching, and when the snow or the rain kept me indoors, I read his bird books and learned about evolution.
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I started doing science when I was effectively 20, a graduate student of Salvador Luria at Indiana University. And that was - you know, it took me about two years, you know, being a graduate student with Luria deciding I wanted to find the structure of DNA; that is, DNA was going to be my objective.
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You've never heard of an English lover. Only an English patient.
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There are many people of color who are very talented.
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You move forward through knowledge. You prevail through knowledge. I love the word 'prevail.' Prevail!
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If someone's liver doesn't work, we blame it on the genes; if someone's brain doesn't work properly, we blame the school. It's actually more humane to think of the condition as genetic. For instance, you don't want to say that someone is born unpleasant, but sometimes that might be true.