“When Henry Ford decided to produce his famous V-8 motor, he chose to build an engine with the entire eight cylinders cast in one block, and instructed his engineers to produce a design for the engine. The design was placed on paper, but the engineers agreed, to a man, that it was simply impossible to cast an eight-cylinder engine-block in one piece.Ford replied,''Produce it anyway.”

“Technology frightens me to death. It's designed by engineers to impress other engineers. And they always come with instruction booklets that are written by engineers for other engineers — which is why almost no technology ever works.”

“Natural selection is not a master engineer, but a tinkerer. It doesn't produce the absolute perfection achievable by a designer starting from scratch, but merely the best it can do with what is has to work with.”

“Did you take Joyce's engine?''My instructions were to disable the car, but one of the men bet Hal a burger he couldn't get the engine out. So Hal removed the engine.”

“Sadness was the driver, the motor of his invention, the engine of his creativity.”

“I was an engineer with Fairbanks Morse, Mr. President. I helped design some of the engines in their locomotives before the war, but then transferred my knowledge to the engines used in the Grant and Lee tanks, many of which were sent to the British.” FDR was once again intrigued by what he heard. “The engine that pulls my train is a Fairbanks Morse locomotive.”Brock beamed. “Yes it is, sir. Engine 978.”