I don’t think people are going to switch over to bikes because it’s good for them or because it’s politically correct. They’re going to do it because it gets them from A to B faster.

Time is money.

Even though the risks of death are higher driving than flying, many people would rather drive simply because they feel they have more control driving. The facts are that only a few hundred people die a year flying, and 44,000 are killed a year driving.

I have been known to buy e-versions of my books because I was in a hotel room and I needed one right away to look up something in it; very handy for that – you can have it just the next minute; you can press the button and just have it.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.

You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

I’m a slow worker; I’m, I think, a steady worker.

I’ve noticed that when I am selling a lot of records, certain things become easier. I’m not talking about getting a table in a restaurant.

Working with a lot of people at the same time is a task. I really like making stuff and getting stuff done. One of the things I really liked about Facebook was that I could always move so quickly. I wrote the original application in, like, nine days at the end of January.

There’s a certain amount of freedom involved in cycling: you’re self-propelled and decide exactly where to go. If you see something that catches your eye to the left, you can veer off there, which isn’t so easy in a car, and you can’t cover as much ground walking.

There is nothing more requisite in business than despatch.

Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

Time is bunk.

Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived.

There appears to be something to do with vehicles and movement that stimulates my writing.

The worst enemy of life, freedom and the common decencies is total anarchy; their second worst enemy is total efficiency.

The eye of the master will do more work than both his hands.

Flying cars are not a very efficient way to move things from one point to another.

Microsoft Research has a thing called the Sense Cam that, as you walk around, it’s taking photos all the time. And the software will filter and find the ones that are interesting without having to think, ‚Let’s get out the camera and get that shot.‘ You just have that, and software helps you pick what you want.

I’m very much into making lists and breaking things apart into categories.

With the amount of fixed expense that goes into developing something like the BE-4 engine, you want it to be used as much as possible.

It is not, of course, complete yet – but some sentences were understood this afternoon… I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem – and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

If you had to buy a new plane every time you flew somewhere, it would be incredibly expensive.

I like the word ‚autopilot‘ more than I like the word ‚self-driving.‘ ‚Self-driving‘ sounds like it’s going to do something you don’t want it to do. ‚Autopilot‘ is a good thing to have in planes, and we should have it in cars.

The least productive people are usually the ones who are most in favor of holding meetings.

It’s time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent.

The thing that we are trying to do at facebook, is just help people connect and communicate more efficiently.

Progressively saved by the machine from the anxieties that bound his hands and mind to material toil, relieved of a large part of his work and compelled to an ever-increasing speed of action by the devices which his intelligence cannot help ceaselessly creating and perfecting, man is about to find himself abruptly plunged into idleness.

Move fast and break things. Unless you are breaking stuff, you are not moving fast enough.

We should work with the principle that a work that can be done at a lower level should never be escalated to a higher level.

My opinion is it’s a bridge too far to go to fully autonomous cars.

It takes me about two hours to run into Target. People always want a picture. They hem and haw, and they can’t spit the words out, so they waste about five minutes of my time just standing there getting ready for a picture. Just do it!

I cycled when I was at high school, then reconnected with bikes in New York in the late ’70s. It was a good way of getting around the clubs and galleries of the Lower East Side and Soho.

Modern travelling is not travelling at all; it is merely being sent to a place, and very little different from becoming a parcel.

He that rises late must trot all day.

People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do.

The bourgeois prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to the deathly inner consuming fire.

We could definitely make a flying car – but that’s not the hard part. The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.

People don’t want lots and lots of single purpose devices. They do not want to have to learn how to set up something for photos, another thing for music, another thing for video.

When I finish something, I want it out that day. Pop music is like the daily paper. Its got to be there then, not six months later.

Cycling is a joy and faster than many other modes of transport, depending on the time of day. It clears the head.

It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste.

If we could do high-speed rail in California just half a notch above what they’ve done on the Shanghai line in China, and if we had a straight path from L.A. to San Francisco, as well as the milk run, at least that would be progress.

If Jesus were here today, he wouldn’t be riding around on a donkey. He’d be taking a plane, he’d be using the media.

The less effort, the faster and more powerful you will be.

From the late 1940s, into and through the ’50s, there developed a complex interaction between federal government, state and local government, real-estate interests, commercial interests and court decisions, which had the effect of undermining the mass transit system across the country.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Cycling can be lonely, but in a good way. It gives you a moment to breathe and think, and get away from what you’re working on.

Outsourcing is inevitable, and I don’t think it’s necessarily treating people like things.

I wish we could be private with Tesla. It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company.

Time management is an oxymoron. Time is beyond our control, and the clock keeps ticking regardless of how we lead our lives. Priority management is the answer to maximizing the time we have.

We are going to transform Britain’s rail system from the worst in the world to the best. If you can do a few things like that, when the body gives out, you can say you’ve lived a good life.

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.

I’m really good at sleeping on planes. I mean, I smell jet fuel and I’m out; I’m asleep for takeoff.

Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being?

If time be of all things the most precious, wasting time must be the greatest prodigality.

I’m bloody awful at multi-tasking.

Fuel prices are at the center of our lives. They affect our ability to travel, stay warm, and feed ourselves.