Everybody recognizes that if you can make very efficient electric motors, you can make a quantum leap forward.

Fear is always a good motivator.

Nobody wants the expenditure of a lease on a factory which lasts 21 years. You can't plan 21 years ahead.

I was frustrated as a child when I had to use a vacuum. It had a screaming noise and the smell of stale dog and a lack of performance.

The computer dictates how you do something, whereas with a pencil you're totally free.

I've obviously used fans - I wouldn't say all my life, because we couldn't afford them when I was young, but from my 20s and onwards we've had to use fans. And I've always loathed them. Everything about them. The way you adjust them, getting them at the angle you want. Carrying them. Cleaning them. The danger of putting your finger in them.

If you invent something, you're doing a creative act. It's like writing a novel or composing music. You put your heart and soul into it, and money. It's years of your life, it's your house remortgaged, huge emotional investment and financial investment.