I think we are at the dawn of a new era in commercial space exploration.

Before I do anything, I think, well what hasn’t been seen. Sometimes, that turns out to be something ghastly and not fit for society. And sometimes that inspiration becomes something that’s really worthwhile.

Whenever you do something, people try to re-do it and do a better version, especially if they’re in another country.

Good ideas are free – or at least they should be.

Space ails us moderns: we are sick with space.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. You may have a child with a birth defect and be able to get in touch with other parents and support groups, get medical information, the latest experimental drugs. These things can profoundly influence life. I’m not downplaying that.

I got my first computer in the 6th grade or so. As soon as I got it, I was interested in finding out how it worked and how the programs worked and then figuring out how to write programs at just deeper and deeper levels within the system.

My first phone was two tin cans tied together with string, and it worked pretty good.

To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.

It is easier to go to the Internet than to go to the library, undoubtedly. But the shift from no libraries to the existence of libraries was a much greater shift than what we’ve seen with the Internet’s development.

Digital technology allows us a much larger scope to tell stories that were pretty much the grounds of the literary media.

I’ve always been at the intersection of computers and whatever they can revolutionize.

I read ‚The High Frontier‘ in high school. I read it multiple times, and I was already primed. As soon as I read it, it made sense to me. It seemed very clear that planetary surfaces were not the right place for an expanding civilization inside our solar system.

But there’s so much kludge, so much terrible stuff, we are at the 1908 Hurley washing machine stage with the Internet. That’s where we are. We don’t get our hair caught in it, but that’s the level of primitiveness of where we are. We’re in 1908.

I’m sorry, it’s true. Having children really changes your view on these things. We’re born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It’s been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much – if at all.

All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff.

As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.

As our case is new, we must think and act anew.

You need to be in the position where it is the cost of the fuel that actually matters and not the cost of building the rocket in the first place.

If GM had kept up with technology like the computer industry has, we would all be driving $25 cars that got 1,000 MPG.

I’m interested in things that change the world or that affect the future and wondrous, new technology where you see it, and you’re like, ‚Wow, how did that even happen? How is that possible?‘

The pace of progress on Mars depends upon the pace of progress of SpaceX.

If you think back to the beginning of cell phones, laptops or really any new technology, it’s always expensive.

To master a new technology, you have to play with it.

If you count E-mail, I’m on the Internet all day, every day.

First, how do we give everyone a fair shot at opportunity and security in this new economy? Second, how do we make technology work for us, and not against us – especially when it comes to solving urgent challenges like climate change? Third, how do we keep America safe and lead the world without becoming its policeman?

The potential financial reward for building the ‚next Windows‘ is so great that there will never be a shortage of new technologies seeking to challenge it.

Art is to be free. Design is to fix.

There are really two things that have to occur in order for a new technology to be affordable to the mass market. One is you need economies of scale. The other is you need to iterate on the design. You need to go through a few versions.

I suppose for me as an artist it wasn’t always just about expressing my work; I really wanted, more than anything else, to contribute in some way to the culture that I was living in. It just seemed like a challenge to move it a little bit towards the way I thought it might be interesting to go.

I think television has had a vast, unbelievable impact on us.

If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away.

It’s not that every single thing that happens on Facebook is gonna be good. This is humanity. People use tools for good and bad, but I think that we have a clear responsibility to make sure that the good is amplified and to do everything we can to mitigate the bad.

The problem is that at a lot of big companies, process becomes a substitute for thinking. You’re encouraged to behave like a little gear in a complex machine. Frankly, it allows you to keep people who aren’t that smart, who aren’t that creative.

I love the 3D revolution. I love the technology today that continues to push the envelope, continues break the new ground, and continues to raise the bar.

I’m very good with technology, I always have been, and with machines in general. They seem not threatening like other people find them, but a source of fun and amusement.

Let every dawn be to you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its close.

It’s easier to add things on to a PC than it’s ever been before. It’s one click, and boom, it comes down.

Rockets are cool. There’s no getting around that.

I’m an inventor.

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

I invented the cordless extension cord.

The multiplication force of technology on cognitive differences is massive.

I have wanted to fly into space for many years, but never imagined it would really be feasible.

Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that black box stuff.

Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest.

Most people have no idea what something would sound like if it wasn’t an MP3.

I think there will be PCs at every price point.

Governments will always play a huge part in solving big problems. They set public policy and are uniquely able to provide the resources to make sure solutions reach everyone who needs them. They also fund basic research, which is a crucial component of the innovation that improves life for everyone.

The revolutionary breakthrough will come with rockets that are fully and rapidly reusable. We will never conquer Mars unless we do that. It’ll be too expensive. The American colonies would never have been pioneered if the ships that crossed the ocean hadn’t been reusable.

The Oklahoma City bombing was simple technology, horribly used. The problem is not technology. The problem is the person or persons using it.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.

The moon and other celestial bodies should be free for exploration and use by all countries. No country should be permitted to advance a claim of sovereignty.

Once the automobile appeared you could have predicted that it would destroy as many people as it did.

Move fast with stable infrastructure.

I didn’t used to wear a watch. Now I have a SPOT watch, which I wear all the time.

A teacher should have a creative mind.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.

Whether it’s Google or Apple or free software, we’ve got some fantastic competitors and it keeps us on our toes.

Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.