Adam Savage Quotes & Sayings

My workplace is wherever I'm making something, which could be in a field in gold country, or in an abandoned warehouse on a military base. — Adam Savage

My advice is keep your lips away from the spinning things. — Adam Savage

We're allowed to explore the world at large on these things; the urban-legend aspect of it is just kind of an excuse. — Adam Savage

I learned at an early age that I could make the things that I wanted. That's a very powerful thing to realize as a kid. LEGOs were a key part of that. — Adam Savage

Bad spellers of the world untie! — Adam Savage

The fact is that the British Museum had a complete specimen of a dodo in their collection up until the 18th century - it was actually mummified, skin and all - but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet and they burned the rest in a bonfire. — Adam Savage

I believe that rules do not make us moral; loving each other makes us moral. — Adam Savage

Growing up in New York, I was sort of shocked when I realized that my children are Californians. They are 14 years old, and I explain to them frequently that they will never realize the glory of a snow day. You wake up and the world says, 'Oops, it's too much fun to go to school, you've got to stay home and deal with the snow!' — Adam Savage

My dignity and good television - they'll never meet. — Adam Savage

Walking the floor at a con dressed as Chewbacca, you might as well be Bono. I mean it's ridiculous. People just walk up and grab you and hold you, because they love Chewbacca so much. — Adam Savage

The coolest toys don't have to be bought; they can be built. In fact, sometimes the only way they'll ever exist is if you make them yourself. — Adam Savage

Prayer doesn't work because someone out there is listening, it works because someone in here is listening. I've paid attention. I've pictured what I want to happen in my life. I've meditated extensively on my family, my future, my past actions and what did and didn't work for me about them. — Adam Savage

Lists are how I parse and manage the world. — Adam Savage

In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a 'failed experiment.' Any test that yields valid data is a valid test. — Adam Savage

That aesthetic of the Star Wars universe: the do-it-yourself, hotrod ethic that George Lucas exported from his childhood, is exactly the same kind of soul behind what we do and build for the show. It may not look pretty, but it gets the job done. — Adam Savage

Stand back! I gotta get some rocket fuel out of the fridge! — Adam Savage

Being a geek is all about learning the inventories of things. — Adam Savage

I have concluded through careful empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought. Giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I'm capable of. I believe they know everything that I do and think, and they still love me, and I've concluded, after careful consideration, that this person keeping score is me — Adam Savage

That was excellent! I mean, it didn't do anything, but it looked really cool! — Adam Savage

It's a treat to see the sun rise over the desert. What am I saying? It's a treat to fire off a rocket car over the desert! — Adam Savage

There's this group online that I frequent. It's a group of prop crazies just like me called the Replica Props Forum, and it's people who trade, make and travel in information about movie props. — Adam Savage

The best-case scenario is that the glass shatters in my face! How do you think that makes me feel? — Adam Savage

Jamie doesn't like to do anything hastily, and I like to do everything incredibly hastily. So therein you have the dichotomy of our patterns. — Adam Savage

That's the show. it's like 5 minutes of science and then 10 minutes of me hurting myself. — Adam Savage

Mostly I make lists for projects. This can be daunting. Breaking something big into its constituent parts will help you organize your thoughts, but it can also force you to confront the depth of your ignorance and the hugeness of the task. That's OK. The project may be the lion, but the list is your whip. — Adam Savage

I'm not gonna shoot anyone with the pellet gun ... Not unless I have to! — Adam Savage

Sometimes my brain writes a check that reality can't cash. — Adam Savage

I love lists. Always have. when I was 14, I wrote down every dirty word I knew on file cards and placed them in alphabetical order. I have a thing about about collections, and a list is a collection with purchase. (Wired Magazine, "Step One: Make a List", October 2012) — Adam Savage

If I had any dignity, that would have been humiliating. — Adam Savage

I just had one of those 'what the hell are we doing' moments. — Adam Savage

This is the point in the show where we say, 'Oh, what else do we have in the van that's flammable?' — Adam Savage

Gravity. It's not just a good idea; it's the law! — Adam Savage

There are women who are wishing that they were that piece of tape right now. — Adam Savage

Don't work for fools. It's not worth it. Getting paid less to work for people you like and believe in is much better for you (and your career) in the long run. — Adam Savage

After all those years of doing remote detonations, where we just push a button and something explodes, to actually see a nice big fat line of black smoke heading toward something that will blow up is very satisfying. — Adam Savage

Let's blow some stuff up. — Adam Savage

New York State is giant and has some of the most beautiful landscape on the Eastern seaboard. There is so much history in New York State, from the Erie Canal to the Catskills, the birth of American stand-up comedy. — Adam Savage

I believe that inside every tool is a hammer. — Adam Savage

Fractals, the theory of relativity, the genome: these are magnificently beautiful constructs. — Adam Savage

I think the whole thing that Jamie [Hyneman] and I have in working together is that we are constantly simplifying each other's designs, and we both appreciate that the quickest and the dirtiest solution is usually the most elegant, the least expensive, and the fastest. — Adam Savage

We're not leaving here without Buster, man. Leave no crash-test dummy behind! — Adam Savage

Back when I was a professional model-maker at Industrial Light & Magic, my specialty was hard-edged construction - spaceships, miniature sets, and architectural stuff. These objects were sometimes just 12 inches across yet needed enough detail to fill a movie screen. — Adam Savage

Failure is always an option — Adam Savage

I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I'm more optimistic than pessimistic. — Adam Savage

Jamie's gonna go take a break now, and i am going to continue the on-going process of making a fool of myself and go ahead and try it myself. — Adam Savage

Technology is usually there to let some process go on hidden in the background. For us on 'MythBusters,' we're always trying to make the process apparent. So, we have learned to try and never rely on a technological solution when an analogue one is in front of us. — Adam Savage

Again, like I said, my life has been about being fascinated by objects and the stories that they tell, and also making them for myself, obtaining them, appreciating them and diving into them. — Adam Savage

I had saved a few hundred photos of dodo skeletons into my 'Creative Projects' folder - it's a repository for my brain, everything that I could possibly be interested in. Any time I have an Internet connection, there's a sluice of stuff moving into there, everything from beautiful rings to cockpit photos. — Adam Savage

Am I missing an eyebrow? — Adam Savage

I think one of the defining moments of adulthood is the realization that nobody's going to take care of you. That you have to do the heavy lifting while you're here. And when you don't, well, you suffer the consequences. — Adam Savage

The only thing that differentiates you and me from a couple of fourteen year old pyromaniacs is balistic glass! — Adam Savage

Bigger is always better. — Adam Savage

When I finally got up to Industrial Light And Magic to work on the 'Star Wars' movies as a model-maker, it felt like dying and going to heaven. — Adam Savage

Whether it's the experiments on 'MythBusters' or my earlier work in special effects for movies, I've regularly had to do things that were never done before, from designing complex motion-control rigs to figuring out how to animate chocolate. — Adam Savage

The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard. — Adam Savage

We are always works in progress. You will hurt people you love, and help people you detest. This is called being a human and it happens to everyone. — Adam Savage

Let's get on our knees and pray. I don't know to whom. Is there a patron saint of ballistics gel? — Adam Savage

In the summer of 2002, we had spent six weeks shooting the three pilots of Mythbusters, and Jamie[Hyneman] called me up afterward - well, first he called me up to tell me to clear my crap back out of his shop - and he said, "Well, that was kind of fun, wasn't it? I mean, I don't see where this could go, because we pretty much did everything. But it was fun." — Adam Savage

We didn't set out to be educators or even scientists, and we don't purport that what we do is real science but we're demonstrating a methodology by which one can engage and satisfy your curiosity. — Adam Savage

Firemen have the coolest toys ever! — Adam Savage

I wouldn't say jamie is an evil genius. I'm not sure he's evil and I'm not sure he's a genius. — Adam Savage

I think at this point, there's a certain bizarre chemistry between Jamie [Hyneman] and I that we can't ignore a lot of the mechanics of, that we're quite aware of. Half of it is absolutely genuine, and half of it is us playing around with that fact. — Adam Savage

The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down. — Adam Savage

The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one. One worth clinging to. But you don't need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It's not just an idea, it's reality. We're discovering the hidden orders of the universe every day. — Adam Savage

The explosions, like the urban legends, are a great way of bringing people in to watch, because it's really fun, and you know we're always going to give you a satisfying ending. — Adam Savage

Deadlines refine the mind. They remove variables like exotic materials and processes that take too long. The closer the deadline, the more likely you'll start thinking waaay outside the box. — Adam Savage

I find that your basic Internet chat board is way too vitriolic for my taste. — Adam Savage

I would have to say that looked like it hurt. — Adam Savage

Remember kids, I have life insurance. — Adam Savage

These are people from everywhere, from Lawrence Livermore and JPL and Sandia National Labs, the FBI, all over the place, real scientists who see what we're doing, and they consistently thank us. "I agree your results aren't always right," they'll say, "but your methods are clearly showing that science is a re-creative process, and it's an interesting process because it's messy, and no other shows show that." — Adam Savage

I felt like I had kind of played it out, and I wanted to see what was next, and then came Mythbusters. You know, it's the best job I've ever had, on its worst day it's better than anything else, but it's a huge amount of responsibility, and there are days when just going into work and building something from someone else's drawing sounds like going back to heaven. — Adam Savage

Jack of all trades, master of none, though often better than a master of one. — Adam Savage

The main trend with the theme episodes is that anywhere there is a misconception about the way the physical world works, we're finding fertile material. Whether it's in a phrase like "going over like a lead balloon" or "a needle in a haystack," or tackling movie myths or even a genre, like MacGyver or James Bond, we're finding that all these things can lead to people believing the world works in a certain way. It might not be correct, but we can test out if it's true. — Adam Savage

I have some ideas on how to fix that. They're not very good ideas, but at least they're ideas! — Adam Savage

The 'Mythbusters' crew, we monitor the Discovery boards, we look for the new ideas that are being forwarded on those boards, and we keep track of what's going on, we keep updated. — Adam Savage

There is no dignity in television. — Adam Savage

I find it's too much for me to read endless critiques, even if we're being well-defended, of exactly what we're doing. When someone tells us something we're doing wrong on the boards, we try to respond, we try to be responsive to the fan boards, but yeah, I can't read them. — Adam Savage

I am now standing in a mixture of cooling fluid, gasoline, and cola. — Adam Savage

I think LEGOs are one of the best toys ever developed. — Adam Savage

If I haven't had any long term psychological side effects from all the things I've already done on this show, this isn't gonna hurt much more. — Adam Savage

I'm not a sculptor; I'm a hard-edged model maker. You give me a drawing, you give me a prop to replicate, you give me a crane, scaffolding, parts from 'Star Wars' - especially parts from 'Star Wars' - I can do this stuff all day long. It's exactly how I made my living for 15 years. — Adam Savage

Greg Broadmore's fertile and twisted imagination has conjoined multiple genres, memories, and a sharp sense of pulp, colonialist nostalgia/parody in this lavish, fully realized, imaginative tour-de-force. It's Jules Verne meets Fritz Lang meets Tintin.
It's beyond Steampunk. It's clearly an insatiable passion for the talismans of a bygone civilization and it's slavish addiction to the early industrial age in all it's filigreed, ignorant glory. Greg has raised the bar. — Adam Savage

I've learned over decades of building that a deadline is a potent tool for problem-solving. — Adam Savage

We cleared all traces of our occupation out of M6 and moved to M7, and it's been quite smooth over there. We chose a place all the way at the end of an industrial park. — Adam Savage

We don't necessarily stand by our faults every time, but we will always stand by our methodologies and ethos. — Adam Savage

I'm obsessed with the form of a toolbox. The idea of a portable kit that has everything you might need ignites something inside me. It's like Batman's utility belt. — Adam Savage

The skeptical community is absolutely near and dear to the 'Mythbusters' heart and there's no small reason that they've embraced us. That's our people. That's the way we like to think. — Adam Savage

Sticks and stones can only break bones; but words can shatter the soul — Adam Savage

Of course, I love tools. I also love arranging them, to the point where I came up with a name for my organizing metric: first-order retrievability. — Adam Savage

There's few things that get you over your own crap more than working hard. — Adam Savage

I'm actually the fourth generation in my family to have no practical use for the church, or God, or religion. My children continue this trend. — Adam Savage

Am I about to feel really, really stupid? — Adam Savage

I like to work fast. I despise not having the right tool or, worse, knowing I have it but not being able to find it. It's a pointless delay that wrecks my pace - and mood. — Adam Savage

I reject your reality and substitute my own. — Adam Savage

Audiences of critical thinkers are my favorite kinds of audiences. There are jokes I tell in the show that don't get laughs unless I am in front of an audience of critical thinkers. Put me in front of a crowd of science teachers or astronauts! The guileless aren't our audience - it's the critical thinkers we love. — Adam Savage

I go home at the end of the day and I rarely talk about what I did that day. So my wife's experience is just like that of anybody else whose husband goes away to a blue collar job and comes home bruised and dirty and often proud of the work that they're doing. — Adam Savage

I'm a lifelong movie addict, and one of my favorite projects is making replica props and costumes. Nearly every one of these - from R2D2 to Hellboy's revolver - ends with the paint job. And it's not just cosmetic. The paint literally tells a story: what this thing is made of, where it's been, what it's been used for, and for how long. — Adam Savage

I've always thought something that makes you laugh, it makes you laugh because there's a little bit of truth to it. — Adam Savage

How hard can it be to blow up a room full of gasoline?! — Adam Savage

It's sort of a mental attitude about critical thinking and curiosity. It's about mindset of looking at the world in a playful and curious and creative way. — Adam Savage