Failures are much more dramatic than successes, and people like drama. I think this is why automobile races draw such crowds. People expect spectacular crashes, which we tend to find more interesting than cars just racing around the track. The same is true of bridges, buildings, or any structure or machine.

— Henry Petroski

I emphasize that virtually every engineering calculation is ultimately a failure calculation, because without a failure criterion against which to measure the calculated result, it is a meaningless number.

— Henry Petroski

I employ case studies of failure into my courses, emphasizing that they teach us much more than studies of success. It is not that success stories cannot serve as models of good design or as exemplars of creative engineering. They can do that, but they cannot teach us how close to failure they are.

— Henry Petroski

I have always been fascinated by the way things work and how they came to take the form that they did. Writing about these things satisfies my curiosity about the made world while at the same time giving me an opportunity to design a new explanation for the processes that shape it.

— Henry Petroski

It seems to be a law of design that for every advantage introduced through redesign, there is an accompanying unintended disadvantage.

— Henry Petroski

I was always told that I was good at mathematics, and I guess my grades and standardized test scores supported that. My worst subjects were those that generally involved a lot of reading - English and history. So, having good test scores in math and mediocre ones in reading, I was naturally advised to major in engineering in college.

— Henry Petroski

Many of the familiar little things that we use every day have typically evolved over a period of time to a state of familiarity. They balance form and function, elegance and economy, success and failure in ways that are not only acceptable, but also admirable.

— Henry Petroski

No design, no matter how common or seemingly insignificant, is without its adamant critics as well as its ardent admirers.

— Henry Petroski

Relying on nothing but scientific knowledge to produce an engineering solution is to invite frustration at best and failure at worst.

— Henry Petroski

Science is about knowing engineering is about doing.

— Henry Petroski