Quotes About Problem-solving

The important lesson for the children was that they know if there is a problem, they can tell us, we can talk about it, and we can resolve it. That's what families do. You face things, and you deal with them, and you move on together.

If you're asked something on a movie set and you say 'I don't know,' you lose confidence in every department. What you need to say is 'I'll have that for you in five minutes.'

We try to make children problem-solvers. That gave birth to solar-heated mud buildings, using greenhouses to grow things and ice stupas - artificial baby glaciers.

The idea for The Muse came from my own life, from a product that I wanted but couldn't find anywhere. Sometimes when you see a need for something in your own life and you can't get it, you feel crazy enough to make it happen yourself.

the razor of Ockham is clean and decisive.

Sometimes this high-tech world calls for low-tech solutions.

Always it is thus with my new students, and especially with the human ones; the mind is the last muscle they train or use, and the one that they regard the least. Ask them about swordplay and they can list every blow from a duel a month old, but ask them to solve a problem or make a coherent statement and... well, I would be lucky to get more than a blank stare in return.

Part of the fascination," he said, "is just little boys who never grew up, playing with Erector sets. Engineers just don't lose that, and if you do lose it, you just can't be an engineer anymore.

Certain of the engineers now entered what West called "the first off-the-wall period." A few quit. Others went on vacation immediately. Still others spent the next couple of weeks playing a game called Adventure, in which you travel by computer into an underground world, wandering through strange, awful labyrinths, searching for treasure that's guarded and sometimes snatched away by dragons, dwarfs, trolls and a rapacious pirate who mutters: "Har. Har.

Hui Shi was set on using the calabash to hold water, never thinking that he could use water to hold the calabash.

Other kids—blind date with someone's brother. Me? A blind date with a wrench.

But I do sometimes wonder whether the technology has de-skilled us as detectives.

Today's young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.

Today's young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it.

Wie wird das eigentlich mit der Sprache?" fragte die Prinzessin, als wir im Zug nach Helsingör saßen. "Du warst doch schon mal da. Sprichst du denn nun gut schwedisch?" »Ich mache das so«, sagte ich. »Erst spreche ich deutsch, und wenn sie das nicht verstehn, englisch, und wenn sie das nicht verstehn, platt - und wenn das nichts hilft, dann hänge ich an die deutschen Wörter die Endung as an, und dieses Sprech-as verstehas sie ganz gut.«

One of his mechanics who despaired when he could not get spare parts for the tanks once announced casually that most of them were ordinary parts he used to order from Sears, Roebuck. Patton seized upon the remark. When it proved impossible to obtain the parts through regular channels—partly because of the red tape and partly because the Army simply did not have any at that stage—he ordered them from Sears, Roebuck and paid the bill out of his own pocket.

Any problem can be solved using the materials in the room.

There's a tremendous popular fallacy which holds that significant research can be carried out by trying things. Actually it is easy to show that in general no significant problem can be solved empirically, except for accidents so rare as to be statistically unimportant. One of my jests is to say that we work empirically -- we use bull's eye empiricism. We try everything, but we try the right thing first!

I believe that each young person is different from any other who has ever lived, as different as his fingerprints: that he could bring to the world a wonderful and special way of solving unsolved problems, that in his special way, he can be great.

I have the benefit of experience which tells me that sulking solves nothing

Fix the problem,not the blame.

They can't just be in that moment of grief with you. They can't just say, 'Yeah, this is some pretty awful stuff.' They have to try to fix it. They have to solve it for you in a couple of sentences, which is ridiculous, because it never solves anything.

I learned a valuable lesson from that editorial experience, and it's served me well in just about every dealing I've had with editors since. If they say there's a problem, they're probably right. Believe them.

Running away from a problem never helps. At some point it has to be confronted and dealt with.