Born on October 1st

"Biochemistry is the science of life. All our life processes - walking, talking, moving, feeding - are essentially chemical reactions. So biochemistry is actually the chemistry of life, and it's supremely interesting."

"I try hope that in the end, we will live in a cancer-free world. We want to live disease-free lives."

"We need to save the education system. We need to remove education from the framework of the political parties that rule in the State of Israel. We need to increase the allocation of long-term national resources to education and never touch them - no matter what."

"We are paying the price for living longer, collecting degenerative diseases along the way. Cancer is only one. Others are heart and brain diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinsons."

"My brother Joseph, who is 14 years older than me, was already on his national military compulsory service when I was 4 years old, the age from which I remember myself."

"I grew up in Haifa and enjoyed the wonderful beaches and Mount Carmel that rolls into the Mediterranean Sea. From my early days at home, I remember a strong encouragement to study."

"Reticulocytes are terminally differentiating red blood cells that do not contain lysosome. Therefore, it was postulated that the degradation of hemoglobin in these cells is mediated by a non-lysosomal machinery."

"The evolvement of proteolysis as a centrally important regulatory mechanism is a remarkable example for the development of a novel biological concept and the accompanying battles to change paradigms."

"To develop drugs for people, we basically dismantle the system. In the lab, we look at things the size of a cell or two. We dismantle life into very small models."

"We discovered a mechanism which is like the garbage machine of the body. We need to remove damaged proteins and create new ones in their place, and we discovered the machine that does this."

"The important thing is to do what you most love in the best way. If you love literature, you could be a great writer and perhaps one day become a Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature."

"The chances of Israeli science competing with big American science are small. For almost 15 years, we had no competition."

"We are a country that lacks riches. The Jewish brain, that's what we have. Everything that we've had and will have in this country is the direct and clear product of higher education. If we harm this system, we will drastically decline and cease to exist."

"The scale of time for a politician runs between one primary and the next, and in Israel, this means two to three years because elections almost never take place once every four years as stipulated by law. The timetable for a system of research is completely different."

"Bringing together the unique expertise of researchers from both NYU and the Technion will hopefully enable us to overcome some of the most difficult challenges in treating cancer patients."

"I studied at the Hebrew University Medical Faculty, graduated, and was an Israel Defense Forces' combat physician on a Navy ship."

"I went to the Technion and studied with Avram Hershko. I found it more exciting than practicing medicine."

"Sometimes there is a greater lack of communication in facile talking than in silence."

"Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations."

"You cannot contribute anything to the ideal condition of mind and heart known as Brotherhood, however much you preach, posture, or agree, unless you live it."

"Character builds slowly, but it can be torn down within incredible swiftness."

"One of the dreariest spots on life's road is the point of conviction that nothing will ever again happen to you."

"Smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics."

"Statesmanship is harder than politics. Politics is the art of getting along with people, whereas statesmanship is the art of getting along with politicians."

"Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought for was representation without taxation."

"It is now proved beyond doubt that smoking is one of the leading causes of statistics."

"A decision is what a man makes when he can't find anybody to serve on a committee."

"There's something always instinctively visually right about nature. There's no difference, to my eye, between looking at a great painting and looking at nature. Because painting, when it's great, has the same immutable rightness, unquestioned rightness, about it."

"A great painting is a great painting."

"If you want to be told what to think, well, I'm not in that business."