Quotes by John Pople

• I found a discarded textbook on calculus in a wastebasket and read it from cover to cover.
• At the age of 12, I developed an intense interest in mathematics. On exposure to algebra, I was fascinated by simultaneous equations and read ahead of the class to the end of the book.
• From an early age I was told that I was expected to do more than continue to run a small business. Education was important and seen as a way of moving forward.
• Life with a scientist who is often changing jobs and is frequently away at meetings and on lecture tours is not easy. Without a secure home base, I could not have made much progress.
• I was a close observer of the developments in molecular biology.
• Leaving England was a painful decision, and we still have some regrets about it. However, at that time, the research environment for theoretical chemistry was clearly better in the U.S.
• I had changed from being a mathematician to a practicing scientist. I was increasingly embarassed that I could no longer follow some of the more modern branches of pure mathematics.
• I am delighted to have had students, friends and colleagues in so many nations and to have learned so much of what I know from them. This Nobel Award honours them all.
• I abandoned chemistry to concentrate on mathematics and physics. In 1942, I travelled to Cambridge to take the scholarship examination at Trinity College, received an award and entered the university in October 1943.
• Our children were mostly brought up and educated in the Churchill suburb east of Pittsburgh. Each summer, we took them back to England for an extended period.
• On my return to Pittsburgh, I resolved to go back to the fundamental problems of electronic structure that I had contemplated abstractly many years earlier.
• Looking through the list of earlier Nobel laureates, I note a large number with whom I became acquainted and with whom I interacted during those years as they passed through Cambridge.
• Like many other Laureates, I have benefit immeasurably from the love and support of my wife and children.
• In the war, most young men were inducted into the armed forces at the age of 17. A group of students was permitted to attend university before taking part in wartime research projects.
• I have had many opportunities to visit universities all over the world in the past 50 years.