Anne McCaffrey Quotes

I like solving problems, and science provides a logical way of solving real-life problems.

Now it's virtually impossible to write a game that successfully provides challenge and frustration, and that's a shame. We are going to lose something that makes scientists, that makes doers, that makes hard-minded, witty, clever people, and I worry that those people aren't being made these days.

I learned quickly, as I tell my graduate students now, there are no answers in the back of the book when the equipment doesn't work or the measurements look strange.

Either I will find a way, or I will make one.

There comes a time in a man's life when to get where he has to go - if there are no doors or windows he walks through a wall.

Nearly every man who develops an idea works it up to the point where it looks impossible, and then he gets discouraged. That's not the place to become discouraged.

Don't be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

Engineers like to solve problems. If there are no problems handily available, they will create their own problems.

I was always taught to let the obstacles be your guide because they lead you to places that you wouldn't have gone on your own. Instead of going through a rock, you go around it, creating a path.

I think and think for months and years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

The center line of science literacy - which not many people tell you, but I feel this strongly, and I will go to my grave making this point - is how you think.

If you want to bring change to any field, beat away at a problem until you solve it.

I think both running and science reflect certain character traits. I have endurance, patience, and ambition. I'm willing to work hard toward a goal, to push myself and overcome limits. Running and science both let me express these traits.

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

Engineering stimulates the mind.

Everybody, as soon as they do a good experiment, their first thought in this lab is, 'That can't be right. I must have screwed it up. What did I do wrong?' And that's the best kind of scientist because they're filled with this self-doubt. And if I'm going to be honest, that's who I am. And it's what drives me.

The scientific mind does not so much provide the right answers as ask the right questions.

We shall either find a way or make one.

I had noticed that many of these successful people, historical and contemporary, shared certain common traits. They had a way of thinking that was exceptionally fluid; they could adapt to almost any circumstance; when confronted with problems, they could look at them from novel perspectives and solve them.

Passion means finding a way.

Science is the practice of failing repeatedly but learning as you go.

If somebody says you can't do something, find five ways to do it.

Mr. Edison worked endlessly on a problem, using the method of elimination. If a person asked him if he were discouraged because so many attempts proved unavailing, he would say, "No, I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.".

The mere formulation of a problem is far more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skills. To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle requires creative imagination and marks real advances in science.