“There is a danger one has to really be knowing much more because you can’t be too narrow on science.”

Human resources are just tremendous in Egypt but we need the science base.

If you like, there is a Guinness time. The reason for that it’s fundamental. It is not that we have to keep shortening the time. It turns out all molecular and biological systems have speeds of the atoms move inside them.

I do feel that there are tremendous amount of talent in Egypt, human resources.

I found with my students they don’t necessarily look at journals any more, but they print right away from the internet what’s relevant to what’s he doing you see.

Electrons and possibly x-rays to be able to get the architecture of these molecules, the molecular structures themselves, of very complex biological systems. That’s the ultimate goal.

I think the Nobel Prize helps for a number of reasons. Number one, if I can be frank, there is these people will feel by getting a Nobel Prize that I’m one of them, that it is possible to contribute on the world map of science and technology.

Although the Nasser revolution of 1952 was secular, the culture remained deeply religious – but it was a faith of moderation and tolerance.

So, I’m an old fashioned still in this regard but these are the moment where I really can be creative, if I am, to be left alone with just a book and piece of paper and to be thinking.

I don’t know all the reasons for these achievements, but I know that I love what I do and I have never wanted to rest on my laurels.

I am not one of the new media experts working all the time with my computers and the PowerPoint’s and things of that sort.

We don’t work like the best basketball player and the best musician and so on. Science is a collective effort.

Invest in basic research and recruit the best minds.

As a child, I thought I was immortal, but now I recognize how limited a time we all have. As a child, success meant scoring A on every exam, but now I take it to mean good health, close family and friends, achieve- ments in my work, and helping others.

I want to really focus on doing this two things I really would like to focus on science and the excitement of science and to help with science.

One of the things I enjoy most is to be left alone with a book.

Women made up nearly half my class at university, and my senior academic adviser there was a woman. In Alexandria, my friends were Christians and Muslims.

The sublimity of administration consists in knowing the proper degree of power that should be exerted on different occasions.

I have frequently said, and I will repeat again, in the manner of any well-meaning seriality, that I’m interested in mixing the ingratiation of wishful thinking with the criticality of knowing better.

There are no shortcuts to knowledge, especially knowledge gained from personal experience. Following conventional wisdom and relying on shortcuts can be worse than knowing nothing at all.

Fearlessness, absolutely. Discipline. You also need open-minded creativeness that lets everything in. You never want to lose a word or a phrase, yet every one should count. Always the best language possible. And, finally, knowing when to leave it alone. Stop when it’s done.

People aren’t often asked to make life or death decisions. There are no causes to die for. You can go through life never knowing which of your friends would really come through for you

I listened, vaguely knowing now that I had committed some awful wrong that I could not undo, that I had uttered words I could not recall even though I ached to nullify them.

The fun for me is knowing what the other person is saying and what my character would be thinking at that time.

Accept periods of suffering with gratitude, knowing that suffering can teach you very important lessons.