I believe that that is a fast-food myth to get us out there buying whatever they’re selling because I know that beans and greens are very, very affordable.

Anyway, what’s the point of a plot, you know? Has life got a plot? Not that I know of. So why should a novel have a plot? But it has to have some kind of story. It has to have some kind of structure.

And in all of that time I won a nickname, ``The Great Communicator.'' But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.

Don’t write in public places. In the early 1990s I went to live in Paris. The usual writerly reasons: back then, if you were caught writing in a pub in England, you could get your head kicked in, whereas in Paris, dans les cafés . . . Since then I’ve developed an aversion to writing in public. I now think it should be done only in private, like any other lavatorial activity.

we had a wonderful education because my parents were so practical … Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard: Yes I mean, I have a strong likeness of culture and also I mean my grandmother was a painter and we do music in the family quite a lot and I think that’s very important. What was also important, I thought about that recently, also maybe as a follow-up of an interview but I was asked what my parents did and so on and looking at my brothers and sisters, we had a wonderful education because my parents were so practical, they did books themselves and we did a lot of handicrafts and I knew how to knit and sew and cook and we learnt a lot to do things ourselves, to make things ourselves so we all have some dexterity in doing things ourselves and this is also very important for Science

I don’t think it’s misused yet, people are afraid of it might be misused but on the other hand, there is also value in finding out about the relation between several particular predispositions. You might be more careful if you are told that your genetic background is such that you shouldn’t eat fat in large amounts or so, it does help you change your life a little bit and so it’s not so bad, but it’s hard to find out which genetic background is causing these things.

As I was lazy and rarely did my homework, I finished high school with a rather mediocre exam. I almost did not pass in English language. Recently, my previous teachers allowed me to see their report on my high school performances, which included the following statements: Despite the fact that her talents are rather equally spread among many areas of knowledge, her performances are rather different depending on the distribution of her interests. Thus, with her strong display of self will she can be decidedly lazy in some topics over years, while in her areas of interests she performs to a degree far extending that required for normal school purposes.

so I sometimes think, why should I talk young women into being a scientist if they then end up being sort of disliked or not accepted by their contemporaries and so it’s a tricky business actually.

I sing yes sure and I garden, I have a large garden and I really recreate myself by doing gardening and thinking about something else so that when your mind gets free from all the burden of the daily troubles and then you can start putting something fresh in, you know.

I think a very big curiosity. I’m very curious and I like to understand things and not only science but also other things where I just try to find out why things work or how things work. Science and nature caught my attention as a small child already. I was growing up in a city but we had a garden and I loved the garden and then often on vacation I was at a farm and I loved these animals and plants and so on, so I was attracted very early on and then we had a very good teaching actually at my … I don’t know whether my teachers really had much of a role because I was determined very early, but then I also did music and I did languages and Literature and so on. I have broad interests actually other than science, but this is really true, this curiosity.