From an early age I was told that I was expected to do more than continue to run a small business. Education was important and seen as a way of moving forward.

Looking through the list of earlier Nobel laureates, I note a large number with whom I became acquainted and with whom I interacted during those years as they passed through Cambridge.

I was a close observer of the developments in molecular biology.

At the age of 12, I developed an intense interest in mathematics. On exposure to algebra, I was fascinated by simultaneous equations and read ahead of the class to the end of the book.

I am delighted to have had students, friends and colleagues in so many nations and to have learned so much of what I know from them. This Nobel Award honours them all.

On my return to Pittsburgh, I resolved to go back to the fundamental problems of electronic structure that I had contemplated abstractly many years earlier.

Leaving England was a painful decision, and we still have some regrets about it. However, at that time, the research environment for theoretical chemistry was clearly better in the U.S.

I had changed from being a mathematician to a practicing scientist. I was increasingly embarassed that I could no longer follow some of the more modern branches of pure mathematics.

Life with a scientist who is often changing jobs and is frequently away at meetings and on lecture tours is not easy. Without a secure home base, I could not have made much progress.

In the war, most young men were inducted into the armed forces at the age of 17. A group of students was permitted to attend university before taking part in wartime research projects.

Our children were mostly brought up and educated in the Churchill suburb east of Pittsburgh. Each summer, we took them back to England for an extended period.

It isn't the subjects we write about but the seriousness and subtlety of our expression that determines the worth of or effort.

The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect.

We don't know something called elections in Libya. We are a muslim country. We don't know something called colonialism and political parties.

We are prudent people. We are afraid to let go of our petty reality in order to grasp at a great shadow.

I prefer to conduct my life based on how I treat people.

It is the future, of course, which politicians grapple with, and that is why politics is so disorderly. Only history clears away some of the debris.

I do not eat meat, I do not smoke, and I do not drink, and therefore, I do not feel the cold.

But I'm only a cockeyed optimist.

There's only so many times you can kick a dog before it turns viscous. (Julian)

I've got to show life as I see it.