“A man with a financial background may know nothing about manufacturing shoes or cars, but he’s put in charge anyway.”

Export anything to a friendly country except American management.

Quality is pride of workmanship.

I predicted in 1950 that in five years, manufacturers the world over would be screaming for protection. It took only four years.

Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action.

If you don’t understand how to run an efficient operation, new machinery will just give you new problems of operation and maintenance.

American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan. But they don’t know what to copy.

I am forever learning and changing.

The big problems are where people don’t realise they have one in the first place.

Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.

When a system is stable, telling the worker about mistakes is only tampering.

No one knows the cost of a defective product – don’t tell me you do.

You can not define being exactly on time.

Customer expectations? Nonsense. No customer ever asked for the electric light, the pneumatic tire, the VCR, or the CD.

People don’t like to make mistakes.

Quality is everyone’s responsibility.

Customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.

Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.

It doesn’t matter what the technology is – no one will watch a Peter Greenaway film anyway.

So I wanted to create soundscapes that are evocative of places that only exist in your head – that’s where the fun, psychedelic stuff happens anyway.

They don’t realize that the actor is looking at their faces, anyway.

I don’t talk very well. With writing, you’ve time to get it right. Also I’ve found the more I talk the less I write, and if I didn’t write no one would want me to talk anyway.

You believe in God, then you don’t believe anymore and when you have a big problem, you pray anyway.

It would be hard to play a character you don’t like – for me anyway – or can’t find something in them to like.

It’s never really that much fun for me to do movies anyway, because you – you know, you have to get up very early in the morning and you have to go in and you spend a lot of time waiting around.