John Preskill

I don't understand what it's all about or what's worth what.

And if the people in the Swedish Academy decide that X, Y or Z wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.

I won't have anything to do with the Nobel Prize.

I don't like honors.

I appreciate it for the work that I did and for people who appreciate it.

And I notice a lot of physicists use my work.

I don't need anything else.

I've already got the prize.

The prize is the pleasure of finding a thing out.

I don't believe in honors.

And that's why we called the finished film The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

One of the things that my father taught me, besides physics, was a disrespect for respectable, for certain kinds of things.

For example, when I was a little boy, in a rotogravure, that's printed pictures in newspapers, first came out in the New York Times, and he'd open a picture, and there was a picture of the Pope with everybody bowing in front of him.

And he'd say, now look at these humans.

Here's one human standing here, and all these others are bowing.

Now what is the difference?

This one is the Pope, and those are the ordinary people.

He hated the Pope anyway.

And he'd say, the difference is epaulettes.

Of course, not in the case of the Pope.