"I get taught life lessons all the time. Probably the most important one is that people will tell you [that] you can’t do something, and you have to ignore them because you can."

- Alan Cooper, @ComputerHistory Oral History (2017)

archive.computerhistory.org/resources/acce…

"Are you working to become a good ancestor -- to make something truly interesting -- or are you just working to make money?

Because you can make money by burning villages down and rebuilding them; that’s a good way to make money, but it’s not a good way to be a good ancestor."

"If you don’t contribute, don’t pay attention and you don’t give back then it can go away in the blink of an eye...

And so I’m rededicated to this notion of no: if you want a democracy it doesn’t mean you live in a democracy.

It means you participate in it or you lose it."

"Design is not art.

I was not an artist; because an artist has a story to say, to tell, and I didn't. I was a craftsman. I loved the tools and the trappings of art.

I realized that there was a different role for me: and that's the thing about design. Design is problem solving."

"Some people just really like to create things themselves.

I think that's why I've never built a big company -- because at some point, you have to stop making things, and you have to start working through others; and I'm much more interested in the things, than the others."