Try to make better antibiotics. I’m not sure we can cure everything, that we can win the game against bacteria, but we can try to control it, to make the appearance of resistance more controllable. We can look for new antibiotics, not overuse antibiotics, not use antibiotics where they are not needed. If possible, if somebody has an idea for something completely new, I would love that.

I constantly fear that Toyota will go back to being an ordinary company. When that fear spreads to many people, it will be too late. Even with the title of president, it took me 14 years to change Toyota, but things could revert in a flash.

Well, you know, the genotype. I'll mention something that nobody ever mentions. Let's say you have now a genotype that makes a certain protein. And that protein, and you can see this in every issue of Science practically, that protein is a very complex structure, incredibly complex. Now how that step from a group of amino acids to that polypeptide [happens] is an enormous jump. I think right now everybody leaves it alone because nobody yet has figured out just exactly how to attack this problem.

I certainly want to continue trying to understand how the global environment functions. The earth as a system is a very complicated one. And to understand it, we need very many disciplines, very many different scientists working together. I want to continue working with my specialty, which is chemistry, with the atmosphere. There is still much to learn about chemical reactions that occur out there in the air, in the atmosphere. So one of my projects now is to really learn more about this pollution that occurs in cities and that is spreading more through the globe. To learn it in enough detail so we can better tackle it, we can better come up with new ways of using energy, for example, that are not so damaging to the environment.

And I realized that to get them I had to figure out how to study. And I did something that has helped me my entire life, and it’s something I still do, which is when I don’t know how to do something now I start reading about it. Back then I would ask people for help.

Because I have to read everything I write and edit it. So I’m not a natural writer. She’s more a natural writer than I am. But I can do what I need to do to give myself enough time to write papers, edit them, before I turn them in.  And that’s what I still do.

Never give up. No matter how hard the challenge might be, no matter how hard a moment might be in one’s life, there is still hope. From every failure I’ve had, I’ve learned a lesson that has propelled me to something else that has actually been better than whatever I thought I could never get over.

Well, what's very interesting is that those people read our opinions which can be, at moments, rather animated. An animated exchange in writing among the justices. And many people who read our opinions think we have to be at each other's necks constantly. It's interesting we're not. When we're talking about cases at our conference it's generally a conversation. It's really a talk about what our perspectives are and why we have reached the conclusions we've reached.

He asked me to go through the evidence of the cases, which I did. And at the end of it he said, “Well, you have one thing missing.” I said “What, I thought I covered all of the bases. I made the best arguments that I think the evidence would support.” And he looked at me, and he said, “That may all be true, but you’re missing passion. You related this crime and your evidence in a very impersonal way. How did you make the jury want to convict?” I said “Well, the judge charges them, tells them they have to convict if I prove my case.” And he said, “No, sentencing, not sentencing, finding someone guilty is a huge responsibility. You have to make people believe it’s what they have to do. And you have to make them believe that the evidence that you’ve presented gives them basically no choice.” And so I said, “How do you do that?” And he explained to me that it’s in the manner that you present your case. It’s in the manner that you show how passionately you believe in what you’re doing. And in how much you believe that you’ve actually proven your case and that they must return a verdict of guilty. And his words have led me to believe that that passion is what guarantees success in life.

And I didn’t know at that moment what my impact was. I actually fell asleep that night crying. But the next morning, my mother woke us up, and she said she doesn’t remember this dress, but it was a black with white polka dot dress. And her hair was finally properly combed.  She had for the first time in a year some makeup on, and I knew my mom was back. And that may have been one of the happiest moments of my life.