Quotes from Lonnie Johnson

When I think back on my childhood and the things that happened to me, there were certain periods of time where I felt like I was being saved for something. I feel like I have a gift, and it would be a sin to waste it.

That's one of the advantages of being an inventor and tinkerer - I have everything I need to make what I need.

I've invented a new type of engine that converts heat directly into electricity with no moving mechanical parts. It's called the Johnson Thermo-Electrochemical Converter, the JTEC.

As an inventor, it's a rite of passage to have an engine. I'd like to have my own engine someday.

Lady Luck is indifferent. She smiles sometimes, and she frowns sometimes.

I am a nuclear engineer. I'm working on advanced energy technology. I have a new type of the engine that converts heat into electricity, and I've also developed a new type of battery that's all ceramic, without liquid electrolyte.

I would say that engineering has been a very positive experience overall, but usually coming into the situation it would be one of being underestimated. People would actually have low expectations. But I would take advantage of it quite honestly, because I would take my time to underestimate the situation.

I have never really understood why in this country so many people look down on black people.

I love playing around with ideas and turning them into something useful or fun.

I was working on a heat pump that used water as a working fluid, and I made some jet pumps for it. I accidentally shot a stream of water across a bathroom where I was doing the experiment and thought to myself, 'this would make a great gun.'

I thought to myself, jeez, it would be really nice to have a high power water gun. It felt really, really good holding a powerful stream in my hand.

More and more, other countries are able to manufacture things cheaper, beating us in the marketplace in a lot of ways. So we need to do whatever we can to make sure America's ability to protect its ingenuity is as strong as it can be.

In 1968 when I was in high school I built a four-foot-tall remote control robot with pneumatic cylinders that operated his hands. My robot won first place at a science competition at the University of Alabama where my high school was the only African-American school represented. That was a huge moral victory.

Most of my career as an engineer, I was put in environments where I was the only person of color in the room.