Mechanical Knowledge Quotes

My uncle is a mechanic, and I wish I had paid more attention, but I never did.

I've always had good connections with cars and always knew how to fix them, so I didn't have trouble with breakdowns.

When I started presenting 'Scrapheap Challenge,' I was rubbish at tuning V8 engines.

With Harley, you build it, then you've got to take it apart.

A Vulgar Mechanick can practice what he has been taught or seen done, but if he is in an error he knows not how to find it out and correct it, and if you put him out of his road he is at a stand. Whereas he that is able to reason nimbly and judiciously about figure, force, and motion, is never at rest till he gets over every rub. (from a letter dated 25 May, 1694)

When I was little, I used to work with my dad on the engine of his car. Mostly this was a matter of me handing him wrenches.

I've always benefited from knowing machines well, because it's freedom, it gives you freedom, I always knew that.

Driving race cars was an avenue for me to learn how to build my own car, and that was my ambition all along.

I don't know about actually doing real productive work on my own car.

I hadn't focused on mechanics since I signed professionally.

In karting, you turn up and drive, look at the data and go home. But I like doing more, learning about the engines and how to make them go even better.

A race driver needs to be quick, to be intelligent, to have good relationships and be in the right place at the right time. There are a lot of factors that would create a successful race driver.

A racing driver has to be a good driver.

I've always had an inquisitive mind about everything from flowers to television sets to motor cars. Always pulled them apart - couldn't put 'em back, but always extremely interested in how things work.

It is a truism that the structure of a society is basically determined by its technology. Not in an absolute sense-there may be totally different cultures using identical tools-but the tools settle the possibilities; you can't have interstellar trade without spaceships. A race limited to a single planet, possessing a high knowledge of mechanics but with its basic machines of industry and war requiring a large capital investment, will inevitably tend toward collectivism under one name or another. Free enterprise needs elbow room.

I was focused on building things from an early age. When I was about 3, our toilet broke, and my mother was ready to call the plumber. I told her I would fix it and asked her to get my Richard Scarry book 'How Things Work in Busytown.' Between the picture of a toilet and the text she read to me explaining how the parts worked, I fixed it.

My grandfather on one side was trained as a cabinetmaker but eventually worked as a coachbuilder and then built cars. I inherited from him a love of cars, but with no technical ability whatsoever, sadly!