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I'm the least-educated person in my immediate family. My two other brothers have multiple advanced degrees, and I only have one. [...] Actually, now that I've got a Nobel Prize, I feel equal.
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Interview by Spencer Michels, The NewsHour, PBS, 2 May 2007

 

Steven Chu

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The pretention that some of us are better than others, I don't think is a very good thing. And who is contributing what to our progress in science is not so obvious and many who don't get that Nobel Prize are better than people than some of us that do get the Nobel Prize. ... I think we should not be interested in prizes, we should be interested in learning about nature.

 

Jack Steinberger

 

In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life. (It has always struck me as strange, by the way, that Alfred Nobel did not institute a philosophy prize, or for that matter that he instituted a physics prize but not a mathematics prize, to say nothing of a music prize - music is, after all, more universal than literature, which is bound to a particular language.) The idea of writer as sage is pretty much dead today. I would certainly feel very uncomfortable in the role.

 

J. M. Coetzee

 

If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.

 

Richard Feynman

 

A man does not become a freedom fighter in the hope of winning awards, but when I was notified that I had won the 1993 Nobel peace prize jointly with Mr. F.W. de Klerk, I was deeply moved. The Nobel Peace Prize had a special meaning for me because of its involvement with South Africa... The award was a tribute to all South Africans, and especially to those who fought in the struggle; I would accept it on their behalf.

 

Nelson Mandela

 

I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.
To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize — men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women, and all Americans, want to build — a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action — a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century.

 

Barack Obama