“Trying to determine the structure of a protein by UV spectroscopy was like trying to determine the structure of a piano by listening to the sound it made while being dropped down a flight of stairs.”

How is the base sequence, divided into codons? There is nothing in the backbone of the nucleic acid, which is perfectly regular, to show us how to group the bases into codons.

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clinches into place.

Protein synthesis is a central problem for the whole of biology, and that it is in all probability closely related to gene action.

Since I essentially knew nothing, I had an almost completely free choice.

A good scientist values criticism almost higher than friendship: no, in science criticism is the height and measure of friendship.

Avoid the temptation to work so hard that there is no time left for serious thinking.

Anybody who believes that the earth is less than 10,000 years old needs psychiatric help.

God is a hacker, not an engineer.

If the code does indeed have some logical foundation then it is legitimate to consider all the evidence, both good and bad, in any attempt to deduce it.

Almost all aspects of life are engineered at the molecular level, and without understanding molecules we can only have a very sketchy understanding of life itself.

There is no scientific study more vital to man than the study of his own brain. Our entire view of the universe depends on it.

Evolution is cleverer than you are.

A theory should not attempt to explain all the facts, because some of the facts are wrong.

The balance of evidence both from the cell-free system and from the study of mutation, suggests that this does not occur at random, and that triplets coding the same amino acid may well be rather similar.

The ultimate aim of the modern movement in biology is in fact to explain all biology in terms of physics and chemistry.