Source: NIH

"To have success in science, you need some luck. Without it, I would never have become interested in genetics. I was 17, almost 3 years into college, and after a summer in the North Woods, I came back to the University of Chicago and spotted the tiny book What is Life by the theoretical physicist Erwin Schrodinger. In that little gem, Schrodinger said the essence of life was the gene. Up until then, I was interested in birds. But then I thought, well, if the gene is the essence of life, I want to know more about it. And that was fateful because, otherwise, I would have spent my life studying birds and no one would have heard of me."

- James D. Watson

Source: NLM

"I have been asked, notably by young investigators, just how I felt during the long period when my work was ignored, dismissed, or aroused frustration. At first, I must admit, I was surprised and then puzzled, as I thought the evidence and the logic sustaining my interpretation of it, were sufficiently revealing. It soon became clear, however, that tacit assumptions - the substance of dogma - served as a barrier to effective communication."

- Barbara McClintock