When people on airplanes ask me what I do, I used to say I was a physicist, which ended the discussion. I once said I was a cosmologist, but they started asking me about makeup, and the title 'astronomer' gets confused with astrologer. Now I say I make maps.

I didn't know what kinds of questions to ask in mathematics. In physics, I could see there were things that were known and things that weren't.

I had a great deal of confidence when I graduated from Berkeley. I had almost none when I was at Princeton. After a while, when people tell you you can't do something because you're a woman, you begin to believe maybe they're right.

I never had a single female professor throughout my whole education, from the beginning of university to the end. Even all the books were about men; I never really liked reading books about the history of science, and I never really understood why.

It's a matter of the heart... I take teaching at Harvard very seriously and supervision of my students very seriously. Harvard should have a bona fide commitment to me.

At least in part, people are attracted to subjects where they can identify at a basic level with the people who do it. The extraordinary aesthetic of the natural world is not obvious to someone who never leaves the inner city. Appreciation of the elegance and power of physical law is an acquired taste.

A family living at the poverty level is unlikely to be able to afford a computer at home. Even with a computer, access to the Internet is another significant expense. A child might borrow a book from a public library; but it is not possible to take a computer home.

The United States is a leader across a broad range of scientific disciplines. Our technological prowess is part of our greatness as a nation. Sadly, among the rich industrialized nations, we also lead by a substantial margin in the rate of poverty among children.

There's something really beautiful about science, that human beings can ask these questions and can answer them. You can make models of nature and understand how it works.

When I won the MacArthur, I didn't receive a different amount of money than the men did.