“When man resolved to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. In doing this, he was practicing surrealism without knowing it.”

“Invention, using the term most broadly, and imitation, are the two legs, so to call them, on which the human race historically has walked.”

“We mustn't be afraid of inventing anything...Everething there is in us exists in nature. After all, we're part of nature. If it resembles nature, that's fine. If it doesn't, what of it? When man wanted to invent something as useful as the human foot, he invented the wheel, which he used to transport himself and his burdens. The fact that the wheel doesn't have the slightest resemblance to the human foot is hardly a criticism of it.”

“Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.”

“There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”

“Genius is what a man invents when he is looking for a way out.”