Knowing without seeing is at the heart of chemistry.

From a chemist's point of view, the surface or interior of a star…is boring—there are no molecules there.

I learned English, my sixth language at this point, quite quickly.

I came to a happy Jewish family in dark days in Europe.

One day I discovered that one could get the barrier to internal rotation in ethane approximately right using this method. This was the beginning of my work on organic molecules.

I am a teacher, and I am proud of it. At Cornell University I have taught primarily undergraduates, and indeed almost every year since 1966 have taught first-year general chemistry.

The best way to transform a society is to empower the women of that society.

If you don't like your teeth

We look not at the things which are what you would call seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal. But the things that are not seen are eternal.

Adolescents are not monsters. They are just people trying to learn how to make it among the adults in the world, who are probably not so sure themselves.

One has to adopt a sort of Zen calm, in which you know you wrote the best book that you could at the time.

If we have loved well while we were alive, there is life after death here-our love will go on for generations.

I love the Lonely Island. I wish there was more Lonely Island movies.

I hate sitting around a table and talking about what a play might mean. I'm the person who's always like, 'Can we get up on our feet and just do it?

Human beings were given a left foot and a right foot to make a mistake first to the left, then to the right, left again and repeat.

We must believe in ourselves or no one will believe in us.