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While a lab director can get done the things that he regards as important, he has the more important job of bringing out the best ideas of the broader scientific community. I learned this early in my career while I was leading the construction of the SPEAR facility.

While the lab plays an enormous role, research is also influenced by inner peace of mind and one's family environment, depending on what stage of one's life and career a scientist is at.

I think there is value in having practising scientists as leaders of research institutions.

In big science, the role of the individual scientist must be carefully preserved. So is the one of original ideas and of contributions.

A great scientist is more open to a new idea than almost anybody.

Further, science is a collaborative effort.

Being able to have a laboratory on Mars, being able to have some sort of sustained human presence on Mars in the future, I think, is critically important for science.

We think that it is the best scientists working in the frontier fields of science who are best able to judge what is good and what is bad - if any - in the application of their scientific research.

I recognized that teaching and research institutions vitally depend on the involvement of active scientists also in management functions.

The best science frequently combines an awareness of broad and significant problems with focus on an apparently small issue or detail that someone very much wants to solve or understand. Sometimes these little problems or inconsistencies turn out to be the clues to big advances.