I cannot imagine a more enjoyable place to work than in the Laboratory of Molecular Biology where I work.

I began studying ribosomes as a postdoctoral fellow in Peter Moore's laboratory in 1978.

I am very grateful for the dedicated work and intellectual contributions of generations of talented postdocs, students and research assistants without whom none of the work from my laboratory would have been possible.

If you go to a second-rate place, and you are first-rate, it is very difficult to do first-rate work because you do not get that critical feedback you need for first-rate work on a daily basis.

I knew the ribosome was going to be the focus of Nobel prizes. It stands at the crossroads of biology, between the gene and what comes out of the gene. But I had convinced myself I was not going to be a winner.

Science is an international enterprise where discoveries in one part of the world are useful in other parts.