Robert B. Laughlin Quotes

It doesn't matter whether it is chemistry or immunology or neuroscience: I just do research on what I find interesting.

I was always very curious about what a scientist's life was like when I was young. Of course, when I was young, you didn't have very many opportunities to find out with no web, TV. I was very lucky: I was born in the city of Chicago and went to the University of Chicago where I actually saw things.

Many of my friends are scientists.

I really didn't like the academic structure of science, but I realized I loved science and missed science.

One of the reasons I've gotten so attached to talking to scientists is that... they know there is a reality.

I spent eighteen months as a graduate student in physics at Columbia University, waiting unhappily for an opportunity to work in a laboratory and wondering if I should continue in physics.

From my earliest days, I was fascinated by science.

A lot of high-level scientists are in fact people of almost universal interest.

I'd like to put in a vote for the intrinsic fascination of science.

I don't think academic writing ever was wonderful. However, science used to be much less specialized.

Some of the most fun people I know are scientists.

I was interested in science before I even knew what science was.

The moment that changed me for ever was when I had my first seminar with my history professor at the University of Sussex. I realised that history would answer all the questions I had spent my life asking. It was an extraordinary moment.

Whenever I think of how much pleasure I have interviewing scientists, I remember that they're having the real fun in actually being able to do the science.

I happen to love science... Scientists are all slightly mad. There is truth in the stereotype of the mad scientist. They are mad with curiosity.

I don't recall any interest in science in particular. It came later in college.

Within the confines of the lecture hall, no other virtue exists but plain intellectual integrity.

I felt I had had enough of politicians and government upheavals …. Suddenly I was enveloped in the feeling that only science is lasting.

The word scientist was coined in 1834, as the sciences were becoming professionalized and specialized

I spent many, many hours in the stack at the University of Washington library just wandering around, when my dad was working, as a kid.

Understanding science and pushing the boundaries of science is what makes me immensely satisfied.

I obtained a Woodrow Wilson Doctoral Fellowship and entered the graduate program in History at the University of California. With no Greek or French and minimal Latin and German, I was in no position to pursue my classical interests, so I began work at Berkeley with little more than an open mind.

I was a graduate student at Oxford when I discovered Georgiana.

I loved science. I still love it; I'm a nerd in that sense.

I guess it's inevitable that I would become somebody who would write about scientists.