There is no such thing as a quantum leap. There is only dogged persistence - and in the end you make it look like a quantum leap.

Everyone gets knocked back, no one rises smoothly to the top without hindrance. The ones who succeed are those who say, right, let’s give it another go.

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.

Children want the challenge of difficult tasks - just look how much better they are than their parents on a computer.

Enjoy failure and learn from it. You never learn from success.

Emerging markets are hugely important.

Exactly 5,126 attempts to make the first bagless vacuum cleaner were failures-some catastrophic disappointments, some minor defects. It took 15 years. Prototype 5,127 was the success ... Failure is painful, but it spurs on improvement like nothing else.