Isidor Isaac Rabi

"My mother made me a scientist without ever intending to. Every other Jewish mother in Brooklyn would ask her child after school: So? Did you learn anything today? But not my mother. "Izzy," she would say, "did you ask a good question today?" That difference — asking good questions — made me become a scientist."

"I think physicists are the Peter Pans of the human race. They never grow up, and they keep their curiosity."

"What more do you want, mermaids?"

"Who ordered that?"