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James Watson Quotes

Browse 8 quotes about James Watson.

James Watson Quotes

“Did you know that only older forests grow the sort of fungi that feeds the variety of orchid called Goodyera pubescens—” “You’re making that up.” “I promise you, I’m not making up mushroom facts for your amusement.” “Pubescens? Pubescent orchid?” He snorted. “Has it grown a little stupid mustache? Does it skateboard?”

Sass Orchid James Watson Charlotte Holmes

Book:A Question of Holmes

Source: A Question of Holmes

“It is one of the striking generalizations of biochemistry—which surprisingly is hardly ever mentioned in the biochemical text-books—that the twenty amino acids and the four bases, are, with minor reservations, the same throughout Nature. As far as I am aware the presently accepted set of twenty amino acids was first drawn up by Watson and myself in the summer of 1953 in response to a letter of Gamow's.”

Science Nature Watson Biochemistry Nobel Laureate Generalizations Striking James Watson James D Watson Gamow George Gamow

Author:Francis Crick

“What haunted me most wasn’t the ropes, or the chair, or the gasoline, though those played recurring parts in my nightmares. It wasn’t Alistair, or Hadrian’s crisis of conscience. It was that we’d had the time, Holmes and I. Three long minutes before the police made it to us, enough for her to turn to me and say, This is what you have to do, and why you have to do it. No, what haunted me most was that I knew, had I confessed to August’s murder there on the lawn, Holmes would have found a way to clear my name. But she was letting her brother walk free for his mistake. She’d given up Bryony Downs to God knows what fate. She’d played judge and jury for Hadrian and Phillipa. And now she was letting herself be led away for a crime she didn’t commit, and she would walk away from it unscathed, and there would be no one doing time for August’s death. It wasn’t hers to decide. It wasn’t mine, either. Charlotte Holmes had told me once that she wasn’t a good person. That day I’d begun to believe it.”

Judge And Jury James Watson Charlotte Holmes

Book:The Case for Jamie

Source: The Case for Jamie

“So while Pauling struggled with his model, Watson and Crick turned theirs inside out, so the negative phosphorus ions wouldn’t touch. This gave them a sort of twisted ladder—the famed double helix.”

Dna James Watson Double Helix Francis Crick Linus Pauling Molecular Structure Nucleic Acids

Book:The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

Source: The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements

“Holmes, my patron saint of trapdoors and fail-safes, of always remembering to pour the foundation so that, later, if you needed to, you could build a brilliant house on top.”

James Watson Charlotte Holmes Fail Safe

Book:The Last of August

Source: The Last of August

“She was altogether colorless and severe, and still she managed to be beautiful. Not the way that girls are generally beautiful, but more like the way a knife catches the light, makes you want to take it in your hands.”

Beauty Knife James Watson Charlotte Holmes

Book:A Study in Charlotte

Source: A Study in Charlotte

“The police aren’t going to let us help them, not if Shepard’s any indication,” she said. “Idiots. I suppose that they don’t like that I tampered with their crime scene.” “We’re also their prime suspects,” I reminded her. “That sort of puts a damper on our working relationship.”

Police James Watson Charlotte Holmes

Book:A Study in Charlotte

Source: A Study in Charlotte

“You could give Aristotle a tutorial. And you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect. Yet not only can you know more than him about the world. You also can have a deeper understanding of how everything works. Such is the privilege of living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and their colleagues. I'm not saying you're more intelligent than Aristotle, or wiser. For all I know, Aristotle's the cleverest person who ever lived. That's not the point. The point is only that science is cumulative, and we live later.”