“People ask me all the time: ‘What is it like to be a woman at Google?’ I’m not a woman at Google, I’m a geek at Google. And being a geek is just great. I’m a geek, I like to code, I even like to use spreadsheets when I cook.”

“If you know you are on the right track, if you have this inner knowledge, then nobody can turn you off… no matter what they say.”

“Certain people discouraged me, saying science was not a good career for women. That pushed me even more to persevere.”

“Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.”

“Let us choose for ourselves our path in life, and let us try to strew that path with flowers.”

“Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.”

“I was taught that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy.”

“Life need not be easy, provided only that it is not empty.”

“All sorts of things can happen when you’re open to new ideas and playing around with things.”

“As always in life, people want a simple answer . . . and it’s always wrong.”

“Courage is like — it’s a habitus, a habit, a virtue: you get it by courageous acts. It’s like you learn to swim by swimming. You learn courage by couraging.”

“For a research worker the unforgotten moments of his life are those rare ones which come after years of plodding work, when the veil over natures secret seems suddenly to lift & when what was dark & chaotic appears in a clear & beautiful light & pattern.”

“I didn’t want to just know names of things. I remember really wanting to know how it all worked.”