Mitochondria Quotes

• We are not made up, as we had always supposed, of successively enriched packets of our own parts. We are shared, rented, occupied. At the interior of our cells, driving them, providing the oxidative energy that sends us out for the improvement of each shining day, are the mitochondria, and in a strict sense they are not ours.

  Lewis Thomas

  Cells, Shining, Energy

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• Over the long term, symbiosis is more useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.

  Larry Wall

  Fun, Long, Symbiosis

  Usenet postings, 1997.

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• My mitochondria comprise a very large proportion of me. I cannot do the calculation, but I suppose there is almost as much of them in sheer dry bulk as there is the rest of me. Looked at in this way, I could be taken for a very large, motile colony of respiring bacteria, operating a complex system of nuclei, microtubules, and neurons for the pleasure and sustenance of their families, and running, at the moment, a typewriter.

  Lewis Thomas

  Running, Taken, Typewriters

  Lewis Thomas (1990). “A Long Line of Cells Collected Essays”

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• I try to think up material that might apply to the subjects they are studying. How many mitochondria does it take to power a cell? One. Because mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. Not ready for prime time, that one.

  Mike Birbiglia

  Funny, Humor, Thinking

  Mike Birbiglia (2012). “Sleepwalk with Me: And Other Painfully True Stories”, p.123, Simon and Schuster

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• Small bodies, about half a micron in diameter, and later referred to under the name of 'mitochondria' were detected under the light microscope as early as 1894.

  Albert Claude

  Light, Names, Half

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• We all come into existence as a single cell, smaller than a speck of dust. Much smaller. Divide. Multiply. Add and subtract. Matter changes hands, atoms flow in and out, molecules pivot, proteins stitch together, mitochondria send out their oxidative dictates; we begin as a microscopic electrical swarm. The lungs the brain the heart. Forty weeks later, six trillion cells get crushed in the vise of our mother’s birth canal and we howl. Then the world starts in on us.

  Anthony Doerr

  Mother, Heart, Cells

  Anthony Doerr (2014). “All the Light We Cannot See: A Novel”, p.468, Simon and Schuster

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