My Engineer Quotes & Sayings

I started as an engineer. I migrated to philosophy and international politics. And I did my studies about African - Africa democracy and democratization in Africa, taking Kenya as a model. And then, while I was doing so in 1996 in South Africa, Al Jazeera was established. So they requested me to be an analyst on African affairs. — Wadah Khanfar

I'll tell ya this: I come from an educated family. My father was an attorney representing blue collar workers, and my uncle was a chemical engineer ... on my mom's side, all my uncles were engineers - all ten of them. — Joe Piscopo

Every time I went into the studio some engineer tried to impress me with how they're going to capture my sound with all kinds of tricks. But they limited the sound and never allowed me to play how I felt. — Dick Dale

My father was an electrical engineer who worked at Westinghouse in Pittsburgh. When I was growing up, my mother wrote humor columns for the local paper. She was the Erma Bombeck of Murrysville, Pa. — Jason Kilar

I'm not engineer educated, but I am an adrenaline junkie. Demolition derbies, drag racing, driving fast
when I gave them up, I tried to think of something I could do to replace them, something that would give me that rush. I love the thrill of impending, weightless doom, so I built something to give me those feelings all the time."
As he stands, hands on hips, nodding at the Blue Flash, I think about impending, weightless doom. It's a phrase I like and understand. I tuck it away in the corner of my mind to pull out later, maybe for a song.
I say, "You may be the most brilliant man I have ever met." I like the idea of something that can give you those feelings all the time. I want something like that, and then I look at Violet and think: . — Jennifer Niven

The summit of Mauna Kea was definitely a place where it was better to be a hard to replace skilled engineer than an easy to replace technician. It was my experience that once you had developed Mauna Kea Sickness that the management team would blatantly harass you out of your job using nasty inhumane human resources techniques. — Steven Magee

I believe destiny and hard work go hand in hand. I was studying to be an engineer when my mom and my brother sent my pictures for the Miss India contest. I didn't even know about it. If that isn't destiny, what is? — Priyanka Chopra

My dad was an engineer and so I had this picture of science and technology and pursuits of the mind as being more impressive than artistic pursuits, which I saw a as kind of frivolous. — Scott McCloud

My father was an engineer - he wasn't literary, not a writer or a journalist, but he was one of the world's great readers. Every two weeks, he'd take me to our local branch library and pull books off the shelf for me, stacking them up in my arms - 'Have you read this? And this? And this?' — Janet Fitch

I can't stop watching 'Pan Am.' When I was growing up, my father worked as an engineer in Turkey, and we always flew Pan Am. The stewardesses were so glamorous! When they gave me a set of those golden wings, I felt very grown-up. Not only is the show's plot full of mystery and infidelity, they get the period details just right. — Gayle King

I scientifically engineer my music to be as accessible as possible. — John Mayer

My mum brought me to my first job when I was 12. I started electrical work at her plant. She was an engineer, a technical expert, at one of the plants in the south, and in the summer she brought me in and I learnt how industrial things work: casting, electricity, maintenance, everything. — Oleg Deripaska

My undergraduate years at the University of Nebraska were a special time in my life: the combination of partying and intellectual awakening that is what the undergraduate years are supposed to be. I went to the university with the goal of becoming an engineer; I had no concept that one could pursue science as a career. — Alan J. Heeger

The announcement that I was going to be an actor was made when was I was 10 years old. And that didn't go down all that well, but I had a lot of years to butter up my parents. My parents have mellowed quite a bit, but, growing up, there was a sense that the only real professions were doctor, engineer, lawyer. Those were your choices. — Reggie Lee

I am so often the architect of my own pain and the engineer of my own failures. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

My father, a mining engineer and colliery manager, gave his brood many advantages, not least of which, for me, was his love of singing, which gave music a central place in our lives. — James Black

I am not optimistic or pessimistic. I feel that optimism and pessimism are very unbalanced. I am a very hard engineer. I am a mechanic. I am a sailor. I am an air pilot. I don't tell people I can get you across the ocean with my ship unless I know what I'm talking about. — R. Buckminster Fuller

I was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on June 15, 1916. My father, an electrical engineer, had come to the United States in 1903 after earning his engineering diploma at the Technische Hochschule of Darmstadt, Germany. — Herbert A. Simon

I was an apprentice television engineer when I decided to pack it up and go full-time, much to my father's disgust. But I'm still interested and I like messing about with TV. I can't deny it ... TV engineering was the job I'd wanted at the time, and I got what I wanted. But in the long-term it would have been second best to being a musician. — Peter Ham

We are two brothers: I am a doctor; my brother is an engineer. — Bassem Youssef

It's crazy how intelligent kids can be at a very young age and how they know what they know. I came out of the womb drawing on everything; I used to draw on my mother's white furniture and her white walls with her red lipstick and my pencils. Little did she know that would later materialize into me doing what I do now - I'm a painter as well and a micromechanical engineer. — Aldis Hodge

My story - the story of the son of Jainulabdeen, who lived for over a hundred years on Mosque Street in Rameswaram island and died there; the story of a lad who sold newspapers to help his brother; the story of a pupil reared by Sivasubramania Iyer and Iyadurai Solomon; the story of a student taught by teachers like Pandalai; the story of an engineer spotted by MGK Menon and groomed by the legendary Prof. Sarabhai; the story of a scientist tested by failures and setbacks; the story of a leader supported by a large team of brilliant and dedicated professionals. This story will end with me, for I have no belongings in the worldly sense. I have acquired nothing, built nothing, possess nothing - no family, sons, daughters. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

While my mother wanted me to be a musician, I wanted to become an electronic engineer. — A.R. Rahman

My father worked for governments all his life as an engineer and public works director. — Edward Tufte

I have three siblings. My sister makes music. My older brother is a classical conductor, and my younger brother is a mixing engineer. — Lisa Loeb

I was always a silent comedy nerd. I would stay up late and sneak downstairs to watch 'Saturday Night Live' and 'Kids in the Hall,' and things like that. Very early on, my parents realized that I was not going to be an engineer or a doctor. I just don't have those inclinations, at all. — Mindy Kaling

My dad was a mechanical engineer and a drummer. We had no money, but I never felt we had no money, and that's what I remember now, having my own child. I think, 'Oh so what?' Kids don't go around the house seeing what's wrong with it. — Donna Air

I'm a fairly ordinary person - a lifelong reader, a former software engineer, and former math teacher. I come from a wonderful family of teachers, musicians, librarians, and engineers. I think I surprised them as well as my friends and coworkers when I took up writing as a hobby and let it take over my life! — Carol Berg

Learning how to code and program computers when I was a kid was one of the best choices I made growing up. By writing code, I learned how to bring my dreams to life, how to budget, and how to build stuff. Whatever path you choose in life - being an artist, an engineer, a lawyer, a teacher, or even a politician, you will give yourself a huge leg up if you learn how to code. — Robert Glaser

Early in my career, I was involved with engineer-led projects, where designers came in late in the game and were expected to put lipstick on an existing code base. This almost never works. — Ryan Holmes

I was originally supposed to become an engineer but the thought of having to expend my creative energy on things that make practical everyday life even more refined, with a loathsome capital gain as the goal, was unbearable to me. — Albert Einstein

Gracie's father was an engineer, her mother an accountant. I couldn't picture either one of them yelling or throwing things or having affairs. I could see my dad doing stuff like that. Trish sure did. But Dad carried a war in his skull, and Trish was a drunk. Gracie's parents didn't have anything like that to deal with, but their daughter was falling apart on the bathroom floor. — Laurie Halse Anderson

I could have gone on to be an engineer full time, except that there was more demand for my playing. But the love of working the board never leaves you. — Steve Cropper

My dad was an engineer, and he became the CEO of Chevron. His was an engineer's mind-set: Everything's kind of a problem; how do you approach the problem? — Bill Keller

Instead of becoming an engineer like my brother, I moved to New York to be an actor. — Anthony Mackie

I have never left the company. I keep a tiny residual salary to this day because that's where my loyalty should be forever. I want to be an "employee" on the company data base. I won't engineer, I'd rather be basically retired, due to my family. (talking about his relationship with Apple Inc) — Steve Wozniak

My father was an engineer and my mother was a social worker, and they met as young socialists. That probably tells you everything you need to know about my attitude to money - I've never really been bothered about it. — Jo Brand

I think there's always an expectation when you're a first generation, especially a first-generation Nigerian, of sort of being a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer. And so, you know, sort of my initial pursuits into the arts and that I was going to pursue film as a career didn't confuse them, but it was definitely something that they were scared about. — Terry Gross

My father was an engineer, .. But I found out that the film critics for the Stanford Daily got free passes for all the films. So I became first an assistant critic and then the main film critic. Those free passes changed my life. — Roger Corman

I used to work on a survey crew, because my dad was an engineer, but he was also a surveyor. — Michael Keaton

My dad wanted me to be a professional person, which I was - I was a civil engineer. I graduated from civil engineering at USC in California. I became an engineer, and I helped design the roads for the L.A. County Roads Department. And I did that for about one and a half years in a sense to please my parents - to be a 'respectable' person. — James Hong

My background is in physics, so I was the mission specialist, who is sort of like the flight engineer on an airplane. — Sally Ride

I am such a gearhead. In my recording studio, I personally engineer and edit everything on computers. — Tommy Lee

My parents, and especially my mother, encouraged by the director of the local school which I was attending, wanted in spite of everything to send me to a National School of Arts and Crafts so that I could later become an engineer. — Leon Jouhaux

My dad never decided what he wanted to do; at times he fought in the army, was a teacher, a boxer, a light engineer, and a then a publican. My mum was a traditional housewife and mother. They showed my brother and I unconditional love. — Anthony Browne

My grandparents used to pray five times a day, but they were quiet about their own thing. Completely liberal day by day; my grandmother was a social worker and my grandfather was an engineer, but they never talked about religion. My entire life I couldn't remember one conversation I had with them about religion. — Mohsin Hamid

I hope that you have nothing against malice, my good engineer. In my eyes it is the brightest sword that reason has against the powers of darkness and ugliness. Malice, sir, is the spirit of criticism, and criticism marks the origin of progress and enlightenment. — Thomas Mann

Find something that you love to do, and find a place that you really like to do it in. I found something I loved to do. I'm a mechanical engineer by training, and I loved it. I still do. My son is a nuclear engineer at MIT, a junior, and I get the same vibe from him. Your work has to be compelling. You spend a lot of time doing it. — Ursula Burns

If I am a parent, what is my relationship with my child? First of all, have I any relationship at all? The child happens to be my son or my daughter, but is there actually any relationship, any contact, companionship, communion between myself and my child, or am I too busy earning money, or whatever it is, and therefore pack him off to school? So I really have no contact or communion at all with the boy or the girl, have I? If I am a busy parent, as parents generally are, and I merely want my son to be something, a lawyer, a doctor, or an engineer, have I any relationship with him even though I have produced him?

Do parents ever ask themselves why they have children? Do they have children to perpetuate their name, to carry on their property? Do they want children merely for the sake of their own delight, to satisfy their own emotional needs? If so, then the children become a mere projection of the desires and fears of their parents. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

My first book, 'To Engineer Is Human,' was prompted by nonengineer friends asking me why so many technological accidents and failures were occurring. If engineers knew what they were doing, why did bridges and buildings fall down? It was a question that I had often asked myself, and I had no easy answer. — Henry Petroski

Programmers are isolated. They sit in their cubicle; they don't think about the larger picture. To my mind, a programmer is not an engineer, because an engineer is somebody who starts with a social problem that an organization or a society has and says, "OK, here's this problem that we have- how can we solve it?" The engineer comes up with a clever, cost-effective solution to address that problem, builds it, tests it to make sure it solves the problem. That's engineering. — Philip Greenspun

Would anyone but a crazed bicephalous being, half engineer, half poet, willingly shackle himself to a venture of such magnitude? I am prisoner of my dream. — Philippe Petit

I would say the most help I got was from my dad. My dad is a civil engineer in Switzerland; he's 90 years old now, so he's no longer active as a civil engineer, but still a very active person. — Claude Nicollier

My background educationally is physics and economics, and I grew up in sort of an engineering environment - my father is an electromechanical engineer. And so there were lots of engineery things around me. — Elon Musk

The only thing I knew was that I would give myself permission to imagine anything, and reverse engineer my way from there. — Natasha Tsakos

My engineer dad is where my technical acumen comes from. I remember him taking me to the factories to see how what works. Often he used to open up his motorbike to fix things and I saw how the wheels worked. His car used to be open for dissection very regularly. All this taught me and inspired me to look beyond what I could see on the skin. — Bibhu Mohapatra

I have been branded with folly and madness for attempting what the world calls impossibilities, and even from the great engineer, the late James Watt, who said ... that I deserved hanging for bringing into use the high-pressure engine. This has so far been my reward from the public; but should this be all, I shall be satisfied by the great secret pleasure and laudable pride that I feel in my own breast from having been the instrument of bringing forward new principles and new arrangements of boundless value to my country, and however much I may be straitened in pecuniary circumstances, the great honour of being a useful subject can never be taken from me, which far exceeds riches. — Richard Trevithick

My father has a manufacturing company in Kentucky, and he's an electrical engineer. A brilliant man. A brilliant businessman. So he understands the business aspects of my business very well. My dad and I always communicate when I have to negotiate a deal. — Laura Bell Bundy

Without 'The Brady Bunch,' my guess is I would have become an engineer working on new plastics or something. — Mike Lookinland

My mother turned into a professional widow. She couldn't understand why I wanted to be an engineer; she thought I should be a chicken farmer. — David Antin

In my first start-up, I had an initial advertising budget of $5 per day total. That would buy us 100 clicks per day. At $5 per day, marketing people scoffed and said that is too small to matter. But if you think about it, to an engineer, 100 real humans everyday giving your product a try means you can really start improving. — Eric Ries

You must live a very free life."
"Me?" she laughed. "I am not who swoops out of the sky to rain fire on pirates!"
"Yeah, but before this I never did much. I mean I did a lot, but ... I lived in a room at a university, and my whole world was in that little room. There was this world inside my head."
De la Fitte studied his head as if she could see through his skull to a little globe inside it somewhere. — Sam Starbuck

And so when I moved to IBM, I moved because I thought I could apply technology. I didn't actually have to do my engineer - I was an electrical engineer, but I could apply it. And that was when I changed. And when I got there, though, I have to say, at the time, I really never felt there was a constraint about being a woman. I really did not. — Ginni Rometty

[ ... ] I will go to France, to Yugoslavia, to China and continue my profession.'
'As sanitary engineer?'
'No, Monsieur. As adventurer. I will see all the peoples and all the countries in the world. — Bruce Chatwin

I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft. — Bill Gates

My generation's parents told their children, 'Become an accountant, a lawyer, or an engineer; that will give you a solid foothold in the middle class.' But these jobs are now being sent overseas. So in order to make it today, you have to do work that's hard to outsource, hard to automate. — Daniel H. Pink

I'll tell you something: my dad was a nuclear engineer and he was really bright, and I've always said that because of negotiating at such a young age with my dad, it was really such a gift because I could then negotiate with very difficult personalities - and not end up being the scapegoat. I learned to really pick and choose my battles. — Faith Prince

I am what prevents the Accelerator from being a bomb."
"Except you didn't," said Gracious. "Because you weren't around."
"I got bored."
"You're a machine."
"Machines can become bored, too."
Gracious looked suddenly concerned. "My toaster is bored?"
"Perhaps, " said the Engineer. "I do not know many toasters. — Derek Landy

My father was a construction engineer, and my mother was a production engineer. — Mikhail Khodorkovsky

My training as an engineer has enabled me to design the stuff, but the reason I do it is not to make music but for the opportunity to work with musicians. — Robert Moog

I try to get away from the pits as quickly as I can. I speak to my engineer when I get out of the car, usually there's some press to do, then I will go off and have a shower and get my dry, clean overalls and clothing on. I'll have a massage, stretch and something to eat. I don't sleep, but I try to close my eyes for a while. — Allan McNish

My father was an engineer working for a textile company that had several factories scattered in rural towns in the southern part of Japan. — Susumu Tonegawa

is "an architect of the modern type who preaches and practices cooperation. He has no use for the architect who 'shuts himself up in his office to make a design and then sends it out to a contractor to build or to an engineer to fit up the plumbing, heating and steel as best as he can.' Nor has he any use for the architect who 'goes up to a Communion on Mount Sinai and hands the results to the owner, the engineers and the public: In his view, as in my own, the best designs, at any rate for the building of skyscrapers, come from 'a group of minds in which the architect is one link in the — Ayn Rand

I come from a pretty scientific family. My sister is a neurologist and my brother is an engineer. — Mary Elizabeth Winstead

Hey, Hayley," I say as I sit down and pick up one of her action figures. She has Barbies, too, but she would rather play with her Legos and building blocks. Maybe she'll be an engineer one day. Or maybe she'll be an amazing tattoo artist like her dad. I make her action figure kiss her Barbie, and she giggles. "I think they're in love," I whisper. "Like you and my daddy," she says back quietly. I nod. And emotion clogs my throat again. I turn my head and cough, and then I dump a box of Legos on the floor. "I think Barbie needs a fortress," I say. She nods, and we start to build a plastic fortress together, because sometimes a girl just needs a fucking fortress. — Tammy Falkner

What would you think of an engineer who expounded the art of flying without revealing the secrets of the engine and propeller? That's what you do, you engineer of the human soul. Just that. You're a coward. You want the raisins out of my cake but you don't want the thorns of my roses. Haven't you too, little psychiatrist, been cracking silly jokes about me? Haven't you ridiculed me as "the prophet of bigger and better orgasms"? Have you never heard the whimpering of a young wife whose body has been desecrated by an impotent husband? Or the anguished cry of an adolescent bursting with unfulfilled love? Does your security still mean more to you than your patient? How long will you go on valuing your respectability above your medical mission? How long will you refuse to see that your pussyfooting procrastination is costing millions their lives? — Wilhelm Reich

My childhood dream was to study mechanical engineering. After reading 'The Mysterious Island' - which I read 25 times as a boy - I thought that was the best thing a person could do. The engineer in the book knows mechanics and physics, and he creates a whole way of life on the island out of nothing. I wanted to be like that. — Dan Shechtman

As an engineer, I understood that the natural world operated according to fixed laws. Through my studies, I came to realize that there were, likewise, laws that govern human wellbeing. It seemed to me that these laws are fundamental not only to the wellbeing of societies, but also to the miniature societies of organizations. Indeed, that is what we found when we began to apply these principles systematically at Koch Industries. Through our observation of how they could create prosperity in an organization, I began to systematize my beliefs into Market-Based Management. — Charles Koch

My parents were born and brought up in New York City. My father was trained as an electrical engineer, and my mother was an elementary school teacher. They were the children of Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States from England and Lithuania in the late 1800s. — David Lee

I guess the two things I was most interested in were telescopes and steam engines. My father was an engineer on a threshing rig steam engine and I loved the machinery. — Clyde Tombaugh

People have always said that I could have been a highly successful pop artist, if only that were my intention. It never was. My original intention was to be a kind of behind-the-scenes participant in music, to just be a record producer and engineer. And I made a record for myself just so I could have an outlet for my musical ideas. — Todd Rundgren

I've always been an engineer devoted to the potential of advanced technologies. Like most engineers, I have a keen sense of curiosity and a deep desire to learn. Garmin was my first entrepreneurial endeavour, and it has been an incredible journey. — Min Kao

Back home, I went to my closet and pulled out the old engineer's transit case stored there. When we were kids, Emma and I had found it in the attic, dusty and empty, and the leather strap used to carry it had a small cut in it. The tag on the top of the wooden-hinged lid read Circa 1907. It was mostly weatherproof and offered plenty of room for the things I valued - like books. — Charles Martin

When you're a kid and your father is an engineer, he goes to the office. I saw my father get up and go to the office in the house and write. But I don't see any similarities. — Jacques Audiard

I was a sound engineer. That was my day job when I started writing. — Graham Moore

I wanted to be a genetic engineer. That was my goal in college. I wanted to figure out what the codon sequence was that causes replication in a cardio myopathic virus. That was my goal. — Ashton Kutcher

My parents were farmers' kids from South Dakota. My dad was an engineer. I wanted to be responsible and major in something pragmatic. — Ron Carlson

I was born in the small town of Gorizia, Italy, on 31 March, 1934. My father was an electrical engineer at the local telephone company and my mother an elementary school teacher. — Carlo Rubbia

My husband, a man with a university degree, an engineer, seriously tried to convince me that it was an act of terrorism. An enemy diversion. A lot of people at the time thought that. But I remembered how I'd once been on a train with a man who worked in construction who told me about the building of the Smolensk nuclear plant: how much cement, boards, nails, and sand was stolen from the construction site and sold to neighboring villages. In exchange for money, for a bottle of vodka. People — Svetlana Alexievich

My father, who had previously been a civil engineer, died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918. — James Rainwater

My grandfather was an engineer who invented the automatic pilot for airplanes. — Temple Grandin

My perspective comes in part from being a New York black lady, in part from being an engineer. I know I'm smart and have opinions worth being heard. — Ursula Burns

When I was working at Omega, I took this Zen retreat, where you're quiet, you don't say anything for a week, and this guy there said, "You're going to be enlightened at the end of this week, that's my goal." I was the engineer, so I was recording everything at it was happening, but I was also participating, because I felt like it. So at the end of it, I did understand what enlightenment was, one-hundred percent. — Larkin Grimm

My mother was a housewife but she was also an artist. My father was an electrical engineer. — James Cameron

My dad, of course, like a lot of Asian parents, wanted me to be an engineer or doctor and never could understand why I would want to be a lawyer. And then, when I first said I wanted to run for office, he thought that was absolutely insane. — Gary Locke

I'm sorry if I seem to digress, but that is precisely what I was thinking at the moment. It's the way my mind works. Things are not the same in real life as they are in, for instance, the fictional world of Sherlock Holmes. Brains, in reality, do not go clickety-clickety-clickety-click from A to B to C to D and so forth, rushing like a train along the rails, until at the end, with a happy "Toot-toot!" they arrive at their destination, Z, and the case is suddenly solved. Quite the contrary. In reality, analytical minds such as my own are forever shooting wildly off in all directions simultaneously. It's like joyously hitting jelly with a sledgehammer; like exploding galaxies; like a display of fireworks in which the pyrotechnic engineer has had a bit too much to drink and set off the whole conglobulation all at once, by accident. — Alan Bradley

My first jobs after graduation in 1955 were as a project engineer for G.E. and later with the U.S. government in Washington, D.C., where I met and married my wife, Dolores Celini. — Oliver E. Williamson

The scientist and the artist are both passionate about their exploration. What leads to my work is that I'm equally an artist and an engineer. — Arthur Ganson

My brother and I were born in an Irish county called Tipperary. We were both very math- and science-inclined in high school. My dad trained as an electrical engineer, and my mom is in microbiology. — John Collison

The teacher was asking her students what their parents did for a living, and Timmy stood up and said, "My daddy's a doctor and my mommy's a doctor too." And little Sarah stood up and said, "My mommy's an engineer and my daddy's an accountant." And then little Billy stands up and says, "My mommy's a writer and my daddy plays the piano in a whorehouse." The teacher was horrified and later she called Billy's father, and said, "Why would you ever tell your child a thing like that?" And the father said, "Well, actually I'm a defense lawyer. But how do you explain a thing like that to a seven-year-old? — Garrison Keillor