A young person who reads a science book is confronted with a number of facts, x = ma … ma - me² … You never see in the scientific books what lies behind the discovery—the struggle and the passion of the person, who made that discovery.

I do believe that a scientist is a freelance personality. We’re driven by an impulse which is one of curiosity, which is one of the basic instincts that a man has. So we are … driven … not by success, but by a sort of passion, namely the desire of understanding better, to possess, if you like, a bigger part of the truth. I do believe that science, for me, is very close to art.

I don’t need hobbies. I mean, why should I run after a ball on a field after I have kicked papers around from nine to five?

I feel that to be a director of a laboratory should not be, by definition, a permanent mission. People should have the courage to step down and go back to science. I believe you will never have a good director of a scientific laboratory unless that director knows he is prepared to become a scientist again. … I gave my contribution; I spent five years of my life to work hard for other people’s interest. … It’s time to go back to science again. I have some wonderful ideas, I feel I’m re-born.

It was the method which attracted me [to physics]—the experimental method, which was born with physics, and is now universal in science. It’s asking a question of nature, and listening for the answer from nature … the way in which you’re going about asking the question and detecting the answer. And in my view it’s this kind of method that attracts me.

Science discovery is an irrational act. It’s an intuition which turns out to be reality at the end of it. I see no difference between a scientist developing a marvellous discovery and an artist making a painting

The act of discovery, the act of being confronted with a new phenomenon, is a very passionate and very exciting moment in everyone’s life. It’s the reward for many, many years of effort and, also, of failures.

There is only one type of science and the various fields are chapters of the same book.

[Science] is not a job nine to five. When you do science you have to do science 24 hours a day. When you are at home you should be thinking about science; when you are going to bed, you should be dreaming about science. It’s full immersion vou see.

[Science] is sort of a game. Any fundamental advances in our field are made by looking at it with the smile of a child who plays a game.