When I came to M.I.T. in 1960, only 4 percent of the students were female. Today, it's about 40 percent of undergraduates. At Lincoln Lab, they had 1,000 men and two women. But we had a very good boss, and he treated us just like everybody else.

Being a woman has helped my career more than it's hindered it.

All the leadership positions that I have had have one common denominator: none has required that I give up my science work.

I think women benefit from being in places and having positions where the quality of work is the criteria, not what you look like. Not every place is like that.

I am going to put money into education at the expense of other programs.

We grew up very poor, and I hated being poor. I was the oldest of five kids, and I never got a pair of skates until I was nine. It was very difficult to get an education back then and play junior hockey.

Friends' was an education in intelligent comedic banter; in intelligent vernacular. It was an education in scene study. It was an education in group dynamic. I came out of there with a master's degree in comedy.

To go from working with a group of people in a sketch-comedy show on a small network, where it was all about just creating funny stuff, to being on a network show, and the pressures of that, and getting to know the new people who were involved in it. There was a learning curve for me. But it was an education.