Any design, whether its for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures.

The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry.

No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art.

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.

Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.

Design is nothing if not decision making.

Form follows failure.

The bookshelf, like the book, has become an integral part of civilization as we know it, its presence in a home practically defining what it means to be civilized, educated, and refined.

All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.

Our expectations for a technology rise with its advancement.

Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.

Reality is perceptual misinterpretation. To change reality, change your perception.

We are endowed with different kinds of gifts for different kinds of services.

Dreams create desired things.

When I’m away from you I am lost.But when I’m with you, I am lost in you.

Laughter erupted from her belly and shot out her mouth like pigeons through an open cage door, schoolchildren bursting into summer vacation, water from a tapped hydrant.

I think that the best things come from thought, without thinking. I think that's the smartest use of the intelligence that we all have.

I am still learning - how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.

The soul-sucking activity of TV-watching feels better when it is done with other souls.

The name of Abraham Lincoln is imperishable.

Give a glass of water, you give it to me. Receive a little child, you receive me.