All inventors, they say, are a little mad. I reckon that only completely sane people are willing to admit they are slightly crazy.

The key to success is to risk thinking unconventional thoughts. Convention is the enemy of progress.

Do what gives you a buzz.

The notion that inventors are anorak-wearing crackpots with glasses held together with Sellotape is beguiling but wrong.

I'd work eighteen-hour stretches and fall asleep in my clothes. Then I'd wake up in the middle of the night, brew a pot of tea, and start work again. I was tired, but work had become pure enjoyment.

A good idea turns every cog in your mind, making you scared of bed in case the whole machine grinds to a halt.

I was on automatic pilot; ideas for gadgets kept coming, fed by a force of energy flowing through me and around me.