Innocence lost is not easily regained. The designer simply cannot predict the problems people will have, the misinterpretations that will arise, and the errors that will get made.

The hardest part of design ... is keeping features out.

Isn't one of your first exercises in learning how to communicate to write a description of how to tie your shoelaces? The point being that it's basically impossible to use text to show that

Technology may change rapidly, but people change slowly. The principals [of design] come from understanding of people. They remain true forever.

When a device as simple as a door has to come with an instruction manual—even a one-word manual—then it is a failure, poorly designed.

Also note that invariably when we design something that can be used by those with disabilities, we often make it better for everyone

I believe that robots should only have faces if they truly need them

Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.

Knowing how people will use something is essential

Complexity is acceptable as long as it is intelligible and necessary. We want to avoid needless complications.

The major problems facing the development of products that are safer, less prone to error, and easier to use and understand are not technological: they are social and organizational.

Snow makes cities innocent again, reveals the frailty of the human gesture against the void.

In every school, more boys wanted to be remembered as a star athlete than as a brilliant student.

It is not possible for minds degraded by a host of trivial concerns to ever rise to anything great.

If you enjoyed high school, you were probably a psychopath or a cheerleader. Or possibly both.

But sometimes shame is a more powerful engine than rage. Like rage, it burns hot; and like rage it tends to consume its own furnace.

All my life I've lived with a future which constantly diminishes but never vanishes.

In many cases a dull proof can be supplemented by a geometric analogue so simple and beautiful that the truth of a theorem is almost seen at a glance.

If 10% is good enough for Jesus, it oughta be enough for Uncle Sam.

The first rule of rock and roll is it's all about live. Then you have to learn a second craft, which is making records. It should go in that order.

Food is the place where you begin.