That they were loved.

A spirit of generosity.

So maybe I don’t try to figure it out. Maybe I just aim to get the couch right: strong bones, high-quality leather, something earthy and animal and real. A surface that knows something of what it was to be alive, that warms to our touch and cools in our absence. Also: an expansive bench that fits all of us. Something that will hold us through everything that lies ahead — the loving, collapsing and nuzzling. The dying, the grieving.

The best possible understanding of who they are and where they came from.

I’m hungry for knowledge…Knowledge, knowledge and I loved it.

We started at Caltech asking very simple questions: how do we understand the molecule dynamics or the dynamics of molecules, emotions and so on, molecules but in a coherent fashion.

Arriving in the States, I had the feeling of being thrown into an ocean. The ocean was full of knowledge, culture, and opportunities, and the choice was clear: I could either learn to swim or sink. The culture was foreign, the language was difficult, but my hopes were high. I did not speak or write English fluently, and I did not know much about western culture in general, or American culture in particular.

I hear repeatedly, particularly in developing countries: "Applied research is what we need."

I am not one of the new media experts working all the time with my computers and the PowerPoint’s and things of that sort. So, I’m an old fashioned still in this regard but these are the moment where I really can be creative, if I am, to be left alone with just a book and piece of paper and to be thinking.

It was also evident to me that if you really want to achieve and do well in American society, you have to work, and work hard…You have to work, you have to work.