William Lear Quotes
102 William Lear Quotes (Bill Lear, Learjet Quotes, William Powell Lear, Bombardier)
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I take things other people do and make useful items out of them.
William Lear
If I know the fundamentals behind things I can find the answer.
William Lear
[On building the Lear Jet] They said it couldn’t be done.
William Lear
I resolved first to make enough money so I’d never be stopped from finishing anything.
William Lear
I don’t want to know details of whether I should multiply x by y over the infinity of poop.
William Lear
The trick is to discern a market – before there is any proof that one exists.
William Lear
Surveys are no good. I make my surveys in my mind.
William Lear
For me the best of life is the exercise of ingenuity – in design, in finance, in flying, in business.
William Lear
Nothing climbs like a Lear Jet. Not even military planes.
William Lear
We clip off about a hundred miles every ten minutes.
William Lear
They can take their contract and shove it!
William Lear
[At age 12 he prepared his own ‘blueprint’ to overcome the economic hardships and adversity he had as a child.] I resolved first to make enough money so I’d never be stopped from finishing anything. Second, that to accumulate money in a hurry – and I was in a hurry – I’d have to invent something that people wanted, and third that if I ever was going to stand on my own feet, I’d have to leave home.
William Lear
[In 1972] No one is going to buy a car simply because it doesn’t pollute.
William Lear
I was intrigued by the old steam cars. I wondered why that motive power never went anywhere.
William Lear
[In 1972] Ecology had nothing to do with motivating me. And the money was not the incentive. It’s been said of me I’m a guy who’s trying to run up $28 million into a fortune. It was simply I needed something to keep me out of trouble.
William Lear
[In 1972 on $5 million pile worth of archetypal systems that will not work.] I call this my junk pile. It doesn’t tell me what I can do, but it tells me what I can’t do. That’s worth a lot.
William Lear
[To a lathe operator in his plant] Lookit, you’ve been on that set of gears for three days – why? [‘You want it right, don’t you?’ – Machinist] No. I just want it to run.
William Lear
I take things other people do and make useful items out of them. I don’t want to know details of whether I should multiply x by y over the infinity of poop. If I know the fundamentals behind things I can find the answer.
William Lear
Doesn’t anybody do arithmetic around here anymore? It’s getting so I hear ‘Let’s put it in the computer’ every time we have a problem. I’m anticomputer for the reason computers operate on the principle: garbage in – garbage out.
William Lear
[On making a steam car in 1972] They knew the problems were so tough they didn’t think anyone would ever lick ‘em. We now have to perfect a means to produce a car at low cost.
William Lear
I didn’t waste a minute trying to interest anyone in contributing to development. Another $3 million and I’ll bring this project to fruition. If somebody came along and said, ‘I’ll give you $15 million and you can walk out scot-free,’ I’d tell him to go to h*ll.
William Lear
[On the Learjet’s new hydraulic system] For crying out loud, let’s cut out this mental masturbation and try something.
William Lear
[On his Learjet’s being practically built for range and speed rather than being a slow flying palace.] This is the royal-scow approach. Some of these guys think they want hot food, standing up bar, sit-down toilet, lie-down couch, walk-around headroom, everything up to and including hot and cold running bidets in an airplane. Who the h*ll needs it? In my plane it takes one hour from Detroit to New York, two hours from New York to Miami. Well, let me tell you about these big, slow scows. After two hours even wall-to-wall girls is not substitute for getting there.
William Lear
[On the Learjet not having walk-around room] You can’t stand up in a Cadillac, either.
William Lear
An average-sized man sitting in my jet has twenty-eight inches of headroom. Anybody with more than a twenty-eight-inch head should buy some other kind of airplane.
William Lear
[On him announcing back in 1963 that he was going to build a business jet] They said I’d never build it, that if I built it, it wouldn’t fly; that if it flew, I couldn’t sell it. Well, I did, and it did, and I could.
William Lear
[On market survey’s by leading aircraft companies in the early 1960s showing that 300 business jets would be sold by 1970 whilst William Lear predicted 3,000] The trick is to discern a market – before there is any proof that one exists. If you had said in 1925 that we would build nine million automobiles a year by 1965, some statistician would have pointed out that they would fill up every road in the United States and, lined up end to end, would go across the country 11 times. Surveys are no good. I make my surveys in my mind.
William Lear
[On predicting that his Learjet would be a runaway best seller.] We’ll sell ‘em like bananas – in bunches.
William Lear
This plane is going to be just like the Volkswagen. Ten years from now it will look just the same. But it will fly faster, land slower, use less fuel and be more reliable.
William Lear
[On grabbing a part off an engineers desk and hefts it up to judge it’s weight.] How much? [‘Three grandmothers.’] Get rid of one. [Grandmother is Learese for pound.]
William Lear
[On continually trying to reduce unnecessary weight in a Learjet to increase it’s speed and extend it’s flying range.] Don’t you know that I’d sell my grandmother to save just one pound?
William Lear
Why couldn’t we cut a square foot right out of the back here? This part doesn’t support anything. Another grandmother and a half.
William Lear
Patience was never one of my virtues. When I make a change, I want every drawing in the plant to be changed within an hour.
William Lear
I don’t waste a minute.
William Lear
[To his ad people.] An ad isn’t a brochure. Anybody who’s got time to read all those words has got too much time. I’m not interested in the bastard.
William Lear
I’m no artist, but I can see what stinks. What it amounts to is that I write the ads and work on the layout, too.
William Lear
I tell them, that if they put up half the money, they can make half the decisions.
William Lear
If I’ve got to go up there and solve it myself, then what the h*ll do I need you for?
William Lear
[On being asked about what the problem was.] The problem, is that there is an overabundance of idiocy around here.
William Lear
[As a student riding around on his bike searching for stalled motorists.] Most troubles were in the electrical system in those days. Usually the carbons in the distributor would break down. I would carry a piece of batter carbon in my pocket. When I found a stalled car, I’d take it out, saw off a piece to fit and get them going. Invariably they’d pat me on the head and say, ‘Thank you,’ and away they’d go. Then I got smart. When the engine was running, I’d say, ‘Just a minute. I want to adjust that a little more.’ Then I’d take the carbon out and start to walk away. I’d insist on getting paid before I put it back in.
William Lear
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