"Intellectual surroundings always felt comfortable for me because I knew I could do it. When I was a kid, I was nobody in particular, but when I started first grade in Antwerp, I surprised everybody, because all of a sudden, that little pipsqueak is the head of the class […]I was used to being among the best, and then I’m thrown in with a whole bunch of the bests […] But I’m very tenacious, and if it weren’t so then I wouldn’t be a woman in physics because in those days getting into the field was very tough. But I’m very tenacious, and hardworking. The seed may have been sown [at Science]."