I think being open-minded about what Nature is trying to tell you is the key to being creative and successful.

When antibiotics became industrially produced following World War II, our quality of life and our longevity improved enormously. No one thought bacteria were going to become resistant.

[Bacteria] have an incredibly complicated chemical lexicon that ... allows bacteria to be multicellular. In the spirit of TED they're doing things together because it makes a difference.

My bacteria glow in the dark - no human being doesn't like that.

You think of yourselves as human beings, but I think of you as 99 percent bacterial.

Bacteria mineralized the rocks; they deposited the iron. They made the geology we see.

The goal of scientists is you hope that the thing you're working on is bigger than the thing you're pipetting into that tube at the moment.

If a bacterium is trying to infect you, it won't secrete alone, because your immune system will block it. Bacteria will hide until they can all act together and make an impact.

Literature cannot be the business of a woman's life, and it ought not to be.(Southey's reply to Charlotte Bronte)

Friendship is as great as a True FriendAnd a True Friend is as great as Friendship.

One of the best decisions that you could ever make in your life, is to vow to never accept quitting as a final answer.

Older people make this mistake all the time with younger people, treating them as a finished product when in fact they are in process.

Bumper sticker: Driver carries no cash - he has a son in college.

So I went for engineering, specifically product design, which I enjoyed.

Don't forget to smile in any situation. As long as you are alive, there will be better things later, and there will be many.

[Walking's] overwhelming advantage is that it can be done by anyone, anytime, anywhere-and it doesn't even look like exercise.

An awakened imagination works with a purpose. It creates and conserves the desirable, and transforms or destroys the undesirable.

I'll always take Scrabble and chess if I'm going filming. But I do have the Scrabble dictionary, which can be infuriating for other players.