I'm afraid I am tidy, and I have to be because the office is open plan and my glass office door is literally always open.

The way the world is going, it's technology driven. And it isn't just driven by the old super powers, it's driven by the far east and new emerging economies.

Engineering is treated with disdain, on the whole. It's considered to be rather boring and irrelevant, yet neither of those is true.

When decisions on nuclear power stations and runways are delayed and the government dilly-dallies, people think they aren't important.

As a modern employer you have to treat people well.

We need to encourage investors to invest in high-technology startups.

If you didn't have patents, no one would bother to spend money on research and development. But with patents, if someone has a good idea and a competitor can't copy it, then that competitor will have to think of their own way of doing it. So then, instead of just one innovator, you have two or three people trying to do something in a new way.

I think if you have to pay for your education, you worry very seriously about you're going to do when you've got your degree.

We should have A-levels in vocational subjects.

We should learn to live more with our climate and rely less on electricity to alter our climate.

I don't do something necessarily to make a big profit or because it's a logical business decision.

You don't get inspiration sitting at a drawing board or in front of your computer.

Fear is always a good motivator.

If you invent something, you're doing a creative act. It's like writing a novel or composing music. You put your heart and soul into it, and money. It's years of your life, it's your house remortgaged, huge emotional investment and financial investment.

Designing aircraft and racing cars is an extremely exciting thing.

Reality TV is anything but.

The U.S. is the biggest investor in research and development in the world. It has the best universities. Keeping them supplied with the best talent is essential.

Business is constantly changing, constantly evolving.

Apartments are getting smaller on a whole. Houses are getting smaller. People don't need great big vacuums anymore.

So I think the winners in recession are the people who produce new technology that does things better, which people really want.

I'm not into politics but I am committed to a cause: ensuring design technology and engineering stays on the U.K. curriculum, alongside science and maths - grounding abstract theory, merging the practical with the academic.

Emerging markets are hugely important.

Engineers are behind the cars we drive, the pills we pop and the way we power our homes.

Now, we don't teach children in schools to be creative. We don't teach them to experiment. We want them to fill in the right answer, tick the right answer in the box.

One of the most fun inventions of my lifetime is the Mini.

I like living on the edge.

If you really want to improve technology, if you want things to work better and be better, you've got to protect the person who spends a lot of effort, money, and time developing that new technology.

Cordless vacuums are designed for quick jobs, but you need enough power to do the job; you don't want the power waning over time.

Everybody recognizes that if you can make very efficient electric motors, you can make a quantum leap forward.

Well, I'm rather attracted to rather prosaic things like vacuum cleaners and hand dryers. Where people haven't apparently made them with a great love for what they're doing.

I've obviously used fans - I wouldn't say all my life, because we couldn't afford them when I was young, but from my 20s and onwards we've had to use fans. And I've always loathed them. Everything about them. The way you adjust them, getting them at the angle you want. Carrying them. Cleaning them. The danger of putting your finger in them.

Well, air-conditioning is not a good thing.

I think people are realizing that engineering and science are extremely good degrees to get and you'll be very highly paid once you've got them.

The British judiciary needs to support intellectual property.

Companies are not ingenious, it's the people in them that are.

I grew up running miles of the Norfolk coastline. I'd think nothing of a six-mile run before breakfast. I still run, though not as far and not before muesli.

I was frustrated as a child when I had to use a vacuum. It had a screaming noise and the smell of stale dog and a lack of performance.

The media thinks that you have to make science sexy and concentrate on themes such as rivalry and the human issues.

Goodness, I know nothing about nuclear energy.

The Web is fascinating and transformative, but it's an easy, flashy, get-rich-quick option to the hard graft of proper industry.

My interest in film is sort of catholic - apart from science fiction and horror movies, I'll watch almost everything.

I hate science fiction.

I imported the first Mac into England in 1984; you know, the beige box. I imported what I think were the first four that came into England. I never opened the instruction manual. That was the best thing about it.

The wonderful thing about Apple technology is just how intuitive it is.

Far too few designers put any thought into usability, ending up with a great product that's completely inaccessible.

Today, computers are almost second nature to most of us.

Anger is a good motivator.

Nobody wants the expenditure of a lease on a factory which lasts 21 years. You can't plan 21 years ahead.

Insurance companies don't make anything.

I'm not a businessman.