If somebody else thinks something that you don't believe in, just think they're wrong and you're right and keep going. That's pretty much the way I a… - Donna Strickland

In high school, I was very good in math and physics. I wasn’t good at much of anything else. Some people are good at a lot of things. I don’t know how they choose what to do. I couldn’t do athletic stuff, I wasn’t artistic, I have no musical ear, and I wasn’t good at writing. So I was pretty narrow in what I could do. I wasn’t thinking, “Can I do science?” I was thinking, “That’s the only thing I can do, so let’s do it."

Is that all, really? I thought there might have been more. We need to celebrate women physicists, because we’re out there. Hopefully, in time, it will start to move forward at a faster rate. I’m honoured to be one of those women.

We wondered if it was a prank. But then I knew it was the right day, and it would have been a cruel prank.