Dean Kamen

More than ever, the world needs good engineers. However, the pool of talent is shrinking not growing.

I consider high-speed data transmission an invention that became a major innovation. It changed the way we all communicate.

Americans thinking that America will continue to lead the world in innovation and quality of life without some quick and serious educational improvements are dangerously delusional.

To me, innovations are the wheel, fire, language, movable type. There are not 3 million innovations; there are 3 million inventions.

An innovation is one of those things that society looks at and says, if we make this part of the way we live and work, it will change the way we live and work.

My father spent his entire early career as an illustrator for comic books: EC Comics like 'Tales from the Crypt' and 'Creepshow,' then moving on to such magazines as 'Mad' and 'Weird Science.'

Technology is how we create wealth, how we cure diseases, how we'll build an environment that's sustainable and also gives people the capacity to pull more out of this world and still leave it better than when they found it.

Sporting competitions seem to be what we obsess over, frankly. So if we can put engineering, science, technology into a format of healthy, fun competition, we can attract all sorts of kids that might not see the kind of activity we do as accessible or rewarding.

Nothing that has value, real value, has no cost. Not freedom, not food, not shelter, not healthcare.

I'd rather lose my own money than someone else's.

When I'm told absolutely no, it's a definite maybe.

I started realizing that I wasn't so dumb; rather, most people simply didn't know the answers to the questions that I was interested in-or they didn't care.