‘When I was a child I used to draw shapes… I drew patterns of the tiniest repeating structures. In my mind were patterns of the tiniest repeating structures.’ (Rosalind reflecting on how she was always fascinated with science and structural composition) p. 11

‘I don’t like others to analyse my data, my work. I work best when I work alone. Of, for whatever reason, I am forced into a different situation, I should feel that I came here under false pretenses.’ (Rosalind) p. 13

‘No. No misunderstanding. Circumstances changed. You see… we now feel that if we discover this structure – this structure – we could discover the way the world works, Miss Franklin. What some are calling ‘the secret of life’. Can you imagine that?’ (Wilkins to Rosalind when they first meet) p. 13

‘You’re absolutely right that the Jews should be in a more grateful frame of mind these days.’ (Rosalind’s sarcastic reply to Wilkins) p. 16

‘Doctoral students are good people to work with, we’re like liquids – we take the shape of the vessel into which we’ve been poured.’ (Gosling to Rosalind) p. 18

‘And all I wanted to say was that I don’t like that things have got off to a… rocky start. I’d like to begin again.’ (Wilkins to Rosalind) p 19

‘Sometimes she would just get away from the lab. I’d arrive in the morning and no one would be there.’ (Gosling about Rosalind) p. 24

‘I think one sees something new each time one looks at truly beautiful things.’ (Caspar in his letter to Rosalind) p. 24

‘It’s just incredibly exciting… to be born at the right time. There’s an element of fate to it, don’t you think? And I don’t believe in fate.’ (Watson to Wilkins at the Naples Symposium) p. 28

‘I saw how the males could court the females, singing the most elaborate songs. Sometimes the female joins in and it’s a duet. Sometimes he sings only for her.’ (Watson observing nature) p. 29

‘He said the worst thing is that it [religion] eradicates curiosity, because it solves everything. So, in my house there was no God. Which meant I needed to go looking for my own set of instructions for life.’ (Watson to Wilkins) p. 29

‘When I was five, my father told me religion was the enemy of progress, a tool used by the rich to give purpose to the lives of the poor… he said the worst thing is that it eradicates curiosity, because it solves everything.’ (Watson to Wilkins on his upbringing) p. 29

‘It’s all I can think of. All I can see. And I want in on it.’ (Watson about the race to solve the mystery of DNA) p. 30

‘I don’t think I’ve set my mind to something for more than five minutes in my entire life without wanting to put the kettle on…’ (Gosling) p. 31

‘But how can we get anything done if she’s constantly making me feel as though I’m being impolite to her? No, worse – offensive.’ (Wilkins) p. 32

‘…I mean does the X-ray camera ever seem like it’s just an extension of your own eye, as though you and you alone possess the superhuman powers that allow you to see into the heart of things?’ (Casper) p. 35

‘…it turned out that, before, they’d been looking at one on top of the other, like… well, a man and woman making love, at that point when one body is indistinguishable from the other… but now Rosalind had discovered how to separate man and woman, how to brush them off, get them out of bed and really see them, naked before her.’ (Caspar narrating at the moment of discovery) pp. 37-8

‘James [Watson] is many things but subtle is not one of them. So you must forgive him, over and over and over again.’ (Crick to Wilkins) p. 40

‘I mean, she could possibly be attractive if she took even the mildest interest in her clothes… there’s nothing gentle, nothing remotely tender about her. She’s a cipher where a woman should be.’ (Watson on Rosalind) pp. 42-3

‘When we shook hands, her handshake was far too firm. There’s nothing gentle, nothing remotely tender about her. She’s a cipher where a woman should be.’ (Watson) p. 43

As a girl, I prided myself on always being right. Because I was always right. I drove my family near mad proposing games to play that I’d win every time.’ (Rosalind) p. 46

‘You know, you really are unspeakably difficult. I’ve never encountered a woman with such temerity.’ (Wilkins to Rosalind) p. 48

‘I take a leap of faith every day, Maurice, just by walking through that door in the morning. I take a leap of faith that it’ll all be worth it, that it will all ultimately mean something.’ (Rosalind) p. 48

‘And what is a race anyway? And who wins? If life is the ultimate race to the finish line, then really we don’t want to win it. Shouldn’t want to win it. Should we?’ p. 50

‘Maybe none of us really knew what we were searching for. What we wanted. Maybe success is as illusory and elusive… always just out of reach…’ (Crick) p. 50

‘Which leads me to believe that you’re here to insult me. That or you’re not aware of the fact that you’re insulting me, which is, perhaps worse. Do you think that if you demoralise me I won’t get it done?’ (Rosalind to Watson) p. 52

‘And we have to build another model. Right now. We have to start right now. We’ve got it, Francis. It’s ours. They’re sitting on it and they don’t know it. It’s ours.’ (Watson to Crick after surreptitiously spying Photograph 51) p. 56

‘But that’s not how it happened. I didn’t just give him the photograph. He asked for it.’ (Wilkins defending his action of giving Photograph 51 to Watson) p. 56

‘For a moment, everything stopped. Different ways our lives could go hovered in the air around us.’ (Rosalind finds that she cannot bring herself to trust and discuss her research with Wilkins) p. 71

‘I have this theory… I think the things we want but can’t have are probably the things that define us…’ (Caspar to Rosalind) p. 73

‘Odile has taken the guest room as her own. She moved her things into it slowly, gradually, over the last few months. She was clever. It was only when nothing was left that I realised she was gone.’ (Crick) pp. 77-8

‘We lose. In the end, we lose. The work is never finished and in the meantime our bodies wind down, tick slower, sputter out.’ (Rosalind) p. 78

‘…with a little bit more time, I like to think I would have [discovered the solution to DNA structure]… so then why didn’t I get those days?’ (Rosalind to Wilkins) pp. 79-80

ROSALIND: I mean, if I’d only…
GOSLING: Been more careful around the beam.
WATSON: Collaborated
CRICK: Been more open, less wary. Less self-protective.
CASPAR: Or more wary, more self-protective
WATSON: Been a better scientist.
CASPAR: Been willing to take more risks, make models, go forward without the certainty of proof.
CRICK: Been friendlier.
GOSLING: Or born at another time.
CRICK: Or born a man.
(The men in chorus discussing Rosalind’s shortcomings) p. 80

‘It’s the tricky thing about time, and memory. I tell my grandchildren: whole worlds of things we wish had happened are as real in our heads as what actually did occur.’ (Caspar) p. 81

And I have spent my whole life in regret.’ (Wilkins) p. 83