Quotes

Everybody in the world is - is ready for liberty. It's a question of how you do it.

I teach at Caltech and oversee a research laboratory there. In general, I find that the majority of young people are excited by the prospects of research, but they soon discover that in the current market, many doctorate-level scientists are holding temporary positions or are unemployed.

In the 1960s, I personally lived the resounding impact of President Nasser's vision of constructing Aswan's High Dam as a 'national project' for controlling the Nile irrigation and the production of electricity.

Once we understand how molecules are formed, we can manipulate them. If you can manipulate molecules, you can manipulate genes and matter, you can synthesize new material - the implications are just unbelievable.

In Egypt, every family is suffering from the deteriorated schooling and university system of the Mubarak regime. What families want most of all is to secure a good education for their children.

On the banks of the Nile, the Rosetta branch, I lived an enjoyable childhood in the City of Disuq, which is the home of the famous mosque, Sidi Ibrahim.

Growing up in Egypt, I never saw the country as divided as it is today. We now have two main political groupings: the Islamist parties and the civil, or liberal, political parties.

I am not one of the new media experts working all the time with my computers and the PowerPoints and things of that sort.

Egypt does not possess rich natural resources. Its agricultural area is relatively small - less than 10 per cent of the total land. Its growth relies on tourism, Suez Canal tariffs, and foreign investment.

As a cultural product of both 'East' and 'West', I do not believe there is a fundamental basis for a clash of civilisations, or that the West is the cause of all problems.

It turns out all molecular and biological systems have speeds of the atoms move inside them; the fastest possible speeds are determined by their molecular vibrations, and this speed is about a kilometre per second.

Syria may appear to be a small country, but it is just the type of entangled conflict that can lead to a world catastrophe. It does not take much imagination to see Syria as the Sarajevo of the 21st century, leading to world war.

Human resources are just tremendous in Egypt, but we need the science base; we need the correct science base.

For years, the West supported Mubarak and gave aid for what it hoped was stability - but was actually stagnation - in the Middle East.

Our femtosecond snapshots can examine a molecule at discrete instants in time.

In the 1970s, what I, as a young foreign student studying in the United States, found most dynamic, exciting and impressive about this country is what much of the world continues to value most about the U.S. today: its open intellectual culture, its great universities, its capacity for discovery and innovation.

As recently as the September 11 event, the majority of Muslims were, as the rest of the world was, against its violence. However, if despair and humiliation continue in the population of more than one billion Muslims, the world will face increasing risks of conflicts and wars.

We must nurture creative scientists in an environment that encourages interactions and collaborations across different fields, and support research free from weighty bureaucracies.

Despite differences of faith or even the occasional collisions between them, Egypt is united.

Some leaders think time will solve the problem. Their hope is that Assad's regime will ultimately fall from the heavy toll of the horrors it has spawned. From past experience with such regimes, this scenario is unlikely to happen.

As someone from, and directly involved with, this part of the world, I am convinced Arabs are qualified to regain their glorious past.

Egypt has great potential because of the latent power of its human capital.

There is no 'master plan' on the road to the Nobel Prize. It represents a lot of hard work, a passion for that work and... being in the right place at the right time. For me, that place was Caltech.

Like everywhere in the world, people of the Middle East aspire to liberty and justice. They wish to have a better life and a decent education for their children.

I can tell you that the majority of the Egyptians I know, they think of a much wider spectrum of people than the Muslim Brotherhood.