Top 173 Quotes & Sayings by Paul Allen - Page 3

There was a time when the government cut off funding to SETI, basically, and I thought it was something that should continue, and it was a very interesting scientific question.

I've been on record many times in the past about the challenge of being competitive with NBA teams in smaller markets.

I believe in the power of shared data and technology to help build a better future.

There's no enjoyment to losing money.

I'm kind of a retired software engineer. I don't write code anymore.

I spent many, many hours in the stack at the University of Washington library just wandering around, when my dad was working, as a kid.

The computer is a very regular structure. It's very uniform. It's got a bunch of memory, and it's got a little element that computes bits of memory and combines them with each other and puts them back somewhere. It's a very simple thing.

I would go in the university stacks and pull out books like 'Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II' when I was 12 or something, and I'd spend hours reading about the engines in some of those planes.

I find the function of the brain incredibly fascinating, and it's like trying to crack the toughest, most complicated problem there is.

It's really amazing to stand in front of a work you haven't seen before and be almost overwhelmed by its beauty and the vision and execution of the artist.

In an ideal world, everybody would find it easy to talk to the press... but not everybody is so excited.

I've always been interested in many different things.

In the university library my father helped lead, as the Associate Director of Libraries from '60 to '82, I spent hours and hours as a kid devouring piles of books so I could follow the latest advances in science.

There's a whole different way to express yourself in music and the other arts, and it hopefully complements other things you do in technology.

I have held Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock guitar and imagined what it would be like to play it, but that's the extent of it.

I just try to find things that either need to be done, should be done, or where I can make a difference in a significant way. And the things I've been able to participate in have been very, very exciting.

The intensity of the Super Bowl is one-of-a-kind. An NBA finals is best-of-seven. But the Super Bowl, one game, winner-take-all. The intensity is off the charts.

Human beings are fragile things, and for the period of time it takes to get them to Mars and back, you have dangerous radiation from the sun and the galaxy. We have to think about issues like that.

The human brain works in, so far, mysterious and wondrous ways that are completely different than the ways that computers calculate. Things like appetite or emotion, how do those function in the brain?

Of course I love basketball.

A big part of the success of Microsoft was that every year, the chips our software ran on got faster and cheaper. They doubled in capability every 18 months under Moore's law.

I'm not a video-game player at all.

All of us who care about the world going forward would like to engage the government more.

Artificial intelligence... I've been following that since I was in high school.

I'm on Twitter, and I have over 10,000 followers. Which is pretty modest compared to Charlie Sheen.

Seattle has a long tradition of celebrating local and non-local art - from the Burke and Seattle Art Museums to the Asian Art Museum.

I have had some amazing experiences as a musician - even with my modest skills.

The idea that, you know - when I was growing up - that everybody would carry around a portable communicating device, that was science fiction when I was a kid.

The NBA is intense, but the NFL is a whole 'nother level of intensity and dramatic, game-changing plays.

In technology, most things fail. Most companies fail.

Once you own a team for as many years as I have, and you root for that team for that period of time, you've got rooting for the Blazers in your blood, and the Sonics are one of our arch-competitors.

As more intelligent computer assistance comes into being, it will amplify human progress.

I think if you look at, for instance, what the Seahawks - what we did winning the Super Bowl, that was with a very young team. So you have to blend the experience with young players and develop those as well.

As an ex-programmer, I'm still just curious about how the brain functions, how that flow of information really happens.

The unique thing about Stratolaunch - one of the unique things - is it doesn't require a fixed launchpad.

There are so many websites I read; I look at everything from Slashdot to Ars Technica to the business technology sites, major newspapers like the 'New York Times,' and my local papers where I live, which cover the sports teams I'm involved with. There are about 20 sites we go to regularly, and I do use Twitter and Facebook as well.

Some of my first memories are waiting for my father to finish his day at work in the University of Washington library and come out and jump in the car with my mom and myself, and we'd be sitting there reading books, and then we'd go home.

I think I've got such a diverse set of interests - movies, aviation, technology, sports teams.

If Microsoft had never existed... The industry would probably be very fragmented.

Recording studios are interesting; a lot of people say - and I agree - that you should have a lot of wood in a recording studio. It gets a kind of a sweeter sound.

I'd love to bring a championship here to Portland.

Art fairs bring attention to up and coming artists and some amazing new works. They are a way to connect everyone with what's happening at the cutting edge of art, both new and historic.

When I was 7 or 8, I became fascinated with hot rods.

What is the best advice, business or otherwise, you've had and from whom? The best advice I've received came many years ago from my father. He told me that you should love whatever work you do, you should try to find something you truly enjoy. And I've been lucky through the years that the work I've been involved with has been challenging and for the most part, fun.

I was in a town of about 10,000 people, and a shipping container with a rusty microscope was their medical clinic.

I think it's going to be great if people can buy a ticket to fly up and see black sky and the stars. I'd like to do it myself-but probably after it has flown a serious number of times first!

Even before I helped to co-found Microsoft, I saw a connected future . . . I called that future The Wired World.

Any crusade requires optimism and the ambition to aim high

With documentary-film projects, you hope you highlight an area of concern people haven't thought about before. A lot of times, I'm asking myself - 'This seems to be a significant problem. What can be done that hasn't been done?

For the most part, the best opportunities now lie where your competitors have yet to establish themselves, not where they're already entrenched. Microsoft is struggling to adapt to that new reality.

The only regrets I have are rather prosaic - like I wish I went for a swim in the Pacific.

In a company where tech decisions were still ultracentralized, the repercussions of a distracted CEO had to be damaging.

Sometimes it's very difficult to find fresh fruit on the road.