My father John A. Ryle was a doctor who, after the war, was appointed to the first Chair of Social Medicine at Oxford University.

The trip I made to Angola to study the prehistoric contents of the gravel beds as a means of deciding the age of the deposits and their economic potential was the first time prehistory had...

I decided that the University of Sussex in Brighton was a good place for this work because it had a strong tradition in bacterial molecular genetics and an excellent reputation in biology.

Colonial governors and senior civil servants are not easy people to argue with, and I was not popular because of my criticism of the colonial service in Kenya.

I never felt interpretation was my job.

It was during my time at secondary school that I abandoned religion.

Our water hole at the camp was little more than a liquid, muddy swamp, in which a rhino wallowed daily and added urine to the puddle.

For a deeper interest in the Moon than I ever felt before.

This possibility bothered me as I thought it was not advisable to remain in one academic environment, and the long dark winters in Edinburgh could be rather dismal.

During the war years I worked on the development of radar and other radio systems for the R.A.F. and, though gaining much in engineering experience and in understanding people, rapidly forgot most of the physics...

There is tragic evidence to show that the paintings at the French prehistoric art sites are deteriorating.

I enjoyed my time at primary school because my teachers made the world seem such an interesting place and encouraged my innate curiosity.

During our first night in the new camp a number of lions came round to investigate. The lions contented themselves by roaring at us.

I think it’s the most important find in view of human evolution. I was really looking for tools, but we never found any at the site.

It was now 1980 and Anne and myself had two little children Sarah and Emily, and we were wondering whether to stay permanently in Edinburgh.

Raising funds for my fourth expedition proved to be very difficult.

It is a pleasure to me to run up to London and enjoy the collections at the National Gallery, South Kensington, and the Royal Academy.

This progress in the molecular analysis of the cell cycle led to more interest being taken in my work and as a consequence to greater competition.

I was born on September 27, 1918, the second of five children.

To save an animal’s life in order that it may suffer indefinitely is something I would never condone.

I felt strongly that since the pursuit of good science was so difficult it was essential that the problem being studied was an important one to justify the effort expanded.

Eloquent testimony to the recovery powers of wild animals frequently becomes apparent from the study of skeletons housed in museums.

I’d rather be in a tent than in a house.

Like many students, I found the drudgery of real experiments and the slowness of progress a complete shock, and at my low points I contemplated other alternative careers including study of the philosophy or sociology...

Sometime during the many millions of years that have elapsed since mammalian faunas came into existence, some sort of island crossed from West Africa to South America.

Nature’s laws must be obeyed, and the period of decline begins, and goes on with accelerated rapidity.

This time at Birmingham turned me into a general biologist, and ever since then I have always tried to take a biological approach to any research project that I have undertaken.

I was educated at Bradfield College and Oxford, where I graduated in 1939.

Tracing the paintings was often complicated because of high winds and by the difficulties of getting within reach of the paintings.

I gradually slipped away from religion over several years and became an atheist or to be more philosophically correct, a sceptical agnostic.

Far too often animals are put to sleep when they could be saved through proper care and nursing.

No amounts of stone and bone could yield the kinds of information that the paintings gave so freely.

My 6 years with Murdoch were pivotal for my entire research career.

Sometimes string figures were used to illustrate stories, as in the case of an Eskimo example that depicts a man catching a salmon. Sometimes they had magic or religious significance.

A key issue in developmental biology at that time was the problem of how cells underwent differentiation, with most workers concentrating on explanations in terms of changes in enzyme and gene regulation.

My parents were born in Norfolk and spent their early years working in the big houses of that rural English county, my mother as a cook and my father as a handyman and chauffeur.

In 1947 I married Rowena Palmer, and we have two daughters, Alison and Claire, and a son, John.

We decided to leave a part of each and every excavated area exactly as we had found it, protecting the specimens from rain and excessive sun.

I had a great time investigating the pigments of different mutant fruit flies by following experimental protocols published in Scientific American, and I also remember making my own beetle collection when it was still acceptable...

I felt that in time simple stone tools would be found in early Pleistocene in England.

Now this really is something to put on the mantelpiece.

My life-long interest in astronomy started then and I still regularly use a telescope for astronomical observations, although very much as an amateur.

Keep your shop and your shop will keep you.

South Africa had a long record of studies in prehistory, going back to the end of the last century.

After an extensive interview he arranged for my weaknesses in foreign languages to be over-looked and so I started a Biology degree at Birmingham in 1967.

In 1959 the University recognized our work by appointing me to a new Chair of Radio Astronomy.

We explored about 180 miles of exposures, ranging from a depth of about 300 feet to 50 feet, before we undertook any major digging.

I have an idealistic view of science as a liberalising and progressive force for humanity.

I have examined the stomach contents of seven aardvarks.

She stops, pauses, turns to the left to glance at some possible threat or irregularity, and then continues to the north. This motion, so intensely human, transcends time.