What I've learned from running is that the time to push hard is when you're hurting like crazy and you want to give up. Success is often just around the corner.

Arbitrary benchmarks cheat kids out of a fulfilling education.

Some of the best inventive moments are born out of 'wrong thinking'. Most people start with the right way so they all follow the same path. The wrong way will lead to mistakes from which you can learn and create new discoveries-the kind of original ideas that come to life when we dare to be different, keep an open mind, and have no fear of failure.

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

Having a good idea is one thing, but persuading other people to buy it is quite another. Good inventors are polymaths: they think with their hands and their brains. They're experts in design, engineering and business.

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.

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.