Ada Yonath Quotes

From the age of 11, I was cleaning floors, washing dishes, making sandwiches and being a cashier. Survival was the name of the game. Life was so hard that I had to struggle to keep up my standards. Under these conditions, I didn’t think about science too much.

Problems should be solved by talking and not in an aggressive manner.

My memories from my childhood are centered on my father‘s medical conditions alongside my constant desire to understand the principles of the nature around me.

I was born in Jerusalem in 1939 to a poor family that shared a rented four-room apartment with two additional families and their children.

I wanted to reveal how genetic code is translated into protein. I knew a great application could be for antibiotics, since half of the useful ones target the ribosomes, but I didn’t believe I could contribute to it. It was like the next Mount Everest to conquer. It was my dream to contribute something to humanity.

When a man sits in our jails for a number of years, and around him friends and family become angry, that is how we create terrorists.

My parents were Zionists born in Poland. My father was a rabbi who didn’t know much about science and ran a grocery store in the neighborhood with my mother‘s help.

I don’t distinguish between men and women. This is irrelevant to me, and I don’t think in these terms.

At the end of the 1970s, I was a young researcher at the Weizmann Institute with an ambitious plan to shed light on one of the major outstanding questions concerning living cells: the process of protein biosynthesis.

I am against boycotts in general: boycotts against us as well as anything and everything that can be boycotted.

I don’t walk into the lab in the morning thinking, ‘I am a woman, and I will carry out an experiment that will conquer the world.’ I am a scientist, not male or female. A scientist.

Many ribosomes act simultaneously along the mRNA, forming superstructures called polysomes.

The world was not supportive. They look at me as a joke for 13 to 14 years until I could prove feasibility; then I had competitors. Those that laughed at me became my competitors.

It is a great honor for me to be able to express my sincere gratitude to the Nobel Foundation.

I used ribosomes from very, very robust bacteria under very, very active conditions and found a way – I actually took advantage of research done before me at the Weizmann, the same institute I am now – how to preserve their activity and their integrity while they crystallized.

Proteins are constantly being degraded. Therefore, simultaneous production of proteins is required.

My kindergarten teacher encouraged me to learn, as did my school headmaster, who gave me a grant to study.

During my time I had some very difficult years, and I had very pronounced competition, all by men.

The Weizmann Institute showed me respect and didn’t require many administrative tasks, so I was quite independent. I did what I wanted.

I was born in Jerusalem with a religious background and a rabbi as a father… it was rather poor, but what we did have, we did have books.

I’m always having to get rid of reporters.

Once, when I tried to calculate the height of the balcony, I broke my arm. Another time, I wanted to see if water moves faster than kerosene. When my father came out to smoke, a fire broke out.

I’m truly glad I’ve managed to get the public interested in questions about basic research.

People always talk about the implication and applications of a process, but for me, the goal is purely about knowledge. Knowledge can become practical today, in 20 years, or in 500 years. Ask Newton. He didn’t know there would be space research based on his accident with the apple.

Waiting for me in Stockholm will be a personal assistant – Katrina from the Ministry for Foreign Affairs – as well the secretary of the Swedish Academy. They’ll help us with our things and take us to our hotel. From the moment I arrive, I’ll always be together with the other two laureates.

My neighborhood didn’t really encourage women, though it didn’t prevent women from progressing, either.

For quite a while, I didn’t receive a higher academic status. I didn’t feel any discrimination against me as a woman scientist, but I hadn’t produced a lot of science journal articles.

There are over 7,000 different types of proteins in typical eukaryotic cells; the total number depends on the cell class and function.

I was described as a dreamer, a fantasist, even as the village idiot. I didn’t care. What I cared about was convincing people to allow me to go on with my work.

Anyone who sits in our jails who is not just a criminal but what we call a terrorist, with or without blood on his hands – and these definitions are also unclear to me – should not be sitting in our custody.