"Nevertheless, this certainly was the cheapest electron microscope ever paid for by a German organization for the promotion of science. "
"Roger, at Cornell University they have an incredible piece of scientific equipment known as the Tunneling Electron Microscope. Now, this microscope is so powerful that by firing electrons you can actually see images of the atom, the infinitesimally minute building blocks of our universe. Roger, if I were using that microscope right now, I still wouldn't be able to locate my interest in your problem. "
"You have to be absolutely patient, but suddenly one atom was sitting right in front of the tip and I got atomic resolution. That’s the way to success, not giving up."
"It took me about twenty years before I had the right system that could be realized in practice and that scientist said it could work"
"I thought that if I patented it, no one else would be able to do work with it. I might earn some money, but I was not interested in that. I was interested in applications for many researchers, creating more fundamental science. So I decided not to patent it."
"It is my intention to offer a prize of $1,000 to the first guy who can take the information on the page of a book and put it on an area 1/25,000 smaller in linear scale in such manner that it can be read by an electron microscope. "
"The electron microscope is like the monkey wrench on the garage wall; what you do with it is the important thing."
"I was half asleep, thinking, 'How the heck can you stretch a magnetic field to straighten it up, to make it really circular, instead of slightly elliptical?' "