I wanted to be free to try any silly thing I decided to do.

By the end of the millennium, despite the continuing excitement of the field, almost thirty years of a detour from chemistry to medical imaging began to pall, and I changed my focus to a field of chemical research, just in time for my past to catch up with me in the form of a Nobel Prize. All detours should be so productive!

With luck, you have other things to do than wait for lightning to strike.

If it doesn't seem possible, nothing much gets done.