Top 25 Ada Yonath Quotes

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

Words originating from the verb ‘to die‘ were frequently used when I described my initial plans to determine the ribosome structure.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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.

Even if I tried to fill up the stadium in Ramat Gan, I don’t think I could.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

People are obsessed with my haircut; everyone wants to do something with my hair before the ceremony. Very senior figures tell me their hairstylist wants to do my hair for free. It’s surprising. People from television are interested almost exclusively in aspects of my hair and my hairdresser.

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

I’m always having to get rid of reporters.

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

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

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

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

DNA is a code of four letters; proteins are made up of amino acids which come in 20 forms. So the ribosome is a very clever machine that reads one language and operates in another.

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.

After I spent my compulsory army service in the ‘top secret office‘ of the Medical Forces, where I was fortunate to be exposed to clinical and medical issues, I enrolled to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.