A few quotes on science and business from friends, colleagues, and mentors, as best as I can remember.


Death is the greatest phenotype.
- JZ


It seemed pretty cool to me, but I think everything is cool. I don’t know anything yet.
- VQ


Now you can just logic it out.
- AL


If you’re studying something with a small effect, just do something else. Go find something with a big effect.
- KR


Tension keeps us healthy and honest.
- TH


In grad school you are in the hallway and you get to peek into as many doors as you want. You can go in or you can go knock on the next one.
- LR


If you don’t know what to do, make a mutant.
- JGZ


If you don’t know what to do, make a movie.
- RL (paraphrase)


Protein structures are like Niagara Falls. Everybody can’t wait to see it, and then you finally get there and just say “Oh. Nice.”
- RA


You can’t find the molecule, feed it to the mice, design the label on the box and send it to the pharmacy yourself.
- KC


The immune system is about the worst thing that ever happened to the average cell.
- GK


An R01 is probably one of the harder ways to get your hands on a half a million dollars.
- JLWM


Don’t let anyone talk to you like that . . . You can just go out there and do anything. It not like in school. I can go buy Goldman Sachs tomorrow if I can convince the right people to lend me money. No one is checking my report card.
- BM


Everything interesting in cell biology is happening in pond scum.
- GK


It’s a nice courtyard, sure. I’d rather own Genentech… but nice.
- NL, on Restriction Enzyme Courtyard at JHMI


Why apply for a million dollars when I can get a billion dollars?
- CV


Consistency is the spice of life.
- JWM


When I really do someone a favor I’m more likely to end up with an acknowledgement than an authorship. Why aren’t we keeping track of that?
- TA (paraphrase)


I wish it was like old times where you can mess around with experiments at your house all day and just write your friends a letter when you find something cool.
- AT


Biology isn’t like building a bridge. It’s less incremental. It’s more like island hopping. If you don’t make it to another island you don’t really get anywhere.
-AL


It’s a great assay. The incubation time is exactly the length of my TV show.
- LM


People will do anything to get their paper picked up by the big journals except write better.
- GK