"Max is rather silent, but to spend the days chewing on a problem, and writing and erasing things on the blackboard with him, is terribly exciting. He is unusually cultured by American standards. You know, most American scientists are duds; they never have read a sensible book."
Salvador Luria. The Eighth Day of Creation. 1979.

"...the whole business was like a child's toy that you could buy at the dime store, all built in this wonderful way that you could explain in Life magazine so that really a five-year-old can understand what's going on...This was the greatest surprise for everyone."
Max Delbruck. The Eighth Day of Creation. 1979.

"[Pauling] didn't deserve to get the structure. He really didn't read the literature. And he didn't talk to anyone either. He'd even forgotten his own paper with Max Delbrück which said that a gene should replicate by complementarity. He seems to consider that he should have got the structure because he was so bright, but really he didn't deserve it."
James Watson. Nature, 302: 653. April 1983.

Back to Quotes Index.