Ada Yonath

Anyone who sits in our jails who is not just a criminal but what we call a terrorist, with or without blood on his hands - and these definitions are also unclear to me - should not be sitting in our custody.

I used ribosomes from very, very robust bacteria under very, very active conditions and found a way - I actually took advantage of research done before me at the Weizmann, the same institute I am now - how to preserve their activity and their integrity while they crystallized.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we're going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it's our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it's because we're focused on ourselves!

I think standing and fighting and working alongside all of these people that raise their right hand and serve their nation... really wipes away the distractions of some of the petty things we think are important at home.