Quotes from James Dyson

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.

Goodness, I know nothing about nuclear energy.

In the past, the U.K. got away with selling things that weren't unusual. Now it's no use trying to export without having something that's unusual and better.

I just want things to work properly.

Beauty can come in strange forms.

I imported the first Mac into England in 1984; you know, the beige box. I imported what I think were the first four that came into England. I never opened the instruction manual. That was the best thing about it.

I was frustrated as a child when I had to use a vacuum. It had a screaming noise and the smell of stale dog and a lack of performance.

Well, I'm rather attracted to rather prosaic things like vacuum cleaners and hand dryers. Where people haven't apparently made them with a great love for what they're doing.

If you really want to improve technology, if you want things to work better and be better, you've got to protect the person who spends a lot of effort, money, and time developing that new technology.

I just think things should work properly.

You need a stubborn belief in an idea in order to see it realised.

The computer dictates how you do something, whereas with a pencil you're totally free.

Designing aircraft and racing cars is an extremely exciting thing.

I like living on the edge.

I made 5,127 prototypes of my vaccum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That's how I came up with a solution. So I don't mind failure.

Fear is always a good motivator.