"Propelled by Dionysian forces far stronger than any of his colleagues', Pauling's intellectual ambition was reinforced by bold managerial maneuvers that placed him and Caltech at the forefront of Rockefeller support and of the production of molecular knowledge."
Lily E. Kay. The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rise of the New Biology (New York: Oxford University Press). 1993.

"In suggesting that hydrogen bonds determined the three-dimensional configuration of proteins - and thus their biological specificity - Pauling and Mirsky enunciated a fundamental relation between molecular structure and biological function. It was also one of the cornerstones of Pauling's conception of molecular architecture, a metaphor and method for explaining life in health and disease, which would lend legitimacy to the molecular biology enterprise."
Lily E. Kay. The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rise of the New Biology (New York: Oxford University Press). 1993.

"Wooden and plastic balls of all colors were designed and made at the laboratories and shops of the chemistry division, their scales and shapes represented such atoms as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen as they exist in proteins. They could be added and subtracted at will, thereby bringing some order to the process of building by trial and error without a clear blueprint."
Lily E. Kay. The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rise of the New Biology (New York: Oxford University Press). 1993.

"During a single year, using his own x-ray equipment, Corey made great strides into the protein puzzle. He showed that in the crystalline dipeptide diketopiperazine (a simplified analogue of amino acids), the amide bonds were coplaner, strongly suggesting the presence of a resonance structure - observations that fit precisely with Pauling's studies of the amide bond in urea during the early 1930s."
Lily E. Kay. The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rise of the New Biology (New York: Oxford University Press). 1993.

"Deeply inspired by D'Arcy Thompson's ideas on form, Wrinch capitalized on topological considerations. She proposed during the mid-1930s a honeycomb-like cage structure, a cyclol, for native globular proteins. That the cyclol consisted of 288 amino acid residues - and thus supposedly offered yet another independent source of evidence for the Svedberg and Bergmann-Niemann units - only served to enhance the 'hypnotic power of numerology."
Lily E. Kay. The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rise of the New Biology (New York: Oxford University Press). 1993.

"Pauling's model-building approach was novel to both crystallography and biological research. It became crucial to the investigations of protein structure, allowing precise visualization of the molecular arrangements and interactions hitherto hidden."
Lily E. Kay. The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rise of the New Biology (New York: Oxford University Press). 1993.

"Beadle was an exemplary product of Caltech's program. His cooperative style, wide network of institutional connections, and effective management of research projects exemplified Caltech's ideal of scientific leadership."
Lily E. Kay. The Molecular Vision of Life: Caltech, The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rise of the New Biology (New York: Oxford University Press). 1993.

"For about forty years I have been thinking of writing a book on the molecular basis of biological specificity, and I am trying to settle down to writing it. My tentative title now is The Nature of Life, Including My Life. I felt that biological specificity was the characteristic property of living organisms, and that it needed to be explained. I think our immunochemical work did that job."
Linus Pauling. Letter to Lily Kay. January 1993.

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