"The public impression is that the government, industry or the highest bidder can buy a scientist to add credibility to any message. That crucial quality of impartiality is being lost."

"Discrimination due to age is one of the great tragedies of modern life. The desire to work and be useful is what makes life worth living, and to be told your efforts are not needed because you are the wrong age is a crime."

"That difficult start drove me on to inspire children and let them know that it is never to late to repair a bad experience at school, and once you get your head down and start to read books, you can really achieve."

"If mathematics is to be understood widely, we need to emphasise its elegance and its applications. Sometimes it seems that universities want to emphasise how difficult it is!"

"If I don't feel confident about my body, I'm not going to sit at home and feel sorry for myself and not do something about it. It's all about taking action and not being lazy. So you do the work, whether it's fitness or whatever. It's about getting up, motivating yourself and just doing it."

"If I could work with any actor it would have to be Johnny Depp. He is cool."

"The path to the CEO's office should not be through the CFO's office, and it should not be through the marketing department. It needs to be through engineering and design."

"As for me, prizes are nothing. My prize is my work."