I wanted to be an inventor, whatever I thought that meant then. I guess I was thinking of Edison or maybe James Watt. Or maybe even Newton.

My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldn't understand why I wanted to be an engineer; she thought I should be a chicken farmer.

My way of thinking is very particular and concrete. It doesn't follow a continuous path.

I guess it wasn't meant to be.

I'm standing up thinking. Anybody who wants to listen is welcome. If not, I'm happy to see them go.

His [Thomas Edison] method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90 per cent of the labor. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense. In view of this, the truly prodigious amount of his actual accomplishments is little short of a miracle.