Adam Savage Quotes

The 'Mythbusters' crew, we monitor the Discovery boards, we look for the new ideas that are being forwarded on those boards, and we keep track of what's going on, we keep updated.

Failure is always an option

We didn't set out to be educators or even scientists, and we don't purport that what we do is real science but we're demonstrating a methodology by which one can engage and satisfy your curiosity.

Stand back! I gotta get some rocket fuel out of the fridge!

We're not leaving here without Buster, man. Leave no crash-test dummy behind!

Audiences of critical thinkers are my favorite kinds of audiences. There are jokes I tell in the show that don't get laughs unless I am in front of an audience of critical thinkers. Put me in front of a crowd of science teachers or astronauts! The guileless aren't our audience - it's the critical thinkers we love.

That's our job - to strap rockets onto everything.

In the spirit of science, there really is no such thing as a 'failed experiment.' Any test that yields valid data is a valid test.

I have concluded through careful empirical analysis and much thought that somebody is looking out for me, keeping track of what I think about things, forgiving me when I do less than I ought. Giving me strength to shoot for more than I think I'm capable of. I believe they know everything that I do and think, and they still love me, and I've concluded, after careful consideration, that this person keeping score is me

There is no dignity in television.

Jamie doesn't like to do anything hastily, and I like to do everything incredibly hastily. So therein you have the dichotomy of our patterns.

Sometimes my brain writes a check that reality can't cash.

I think at this point, there's a certain bizarre chemistry between Jamie [Hyneman] and I that we can't ignore a lot of the mechanics of, that we're quite aware of. Half of it is absolutely genuine, and half of it is us playing around with that fact.

I find that your basic Internet chat board is way too vitriolic for my taste.

I am incrementally a pessimist, but I see the international debate that Edward Snowden has engendered, and I think this is exactly where the discussion should be. So, I would say I'm more optimistic than pessimistic.

I have some ideas on how to fix that. They're not very good ideas, but at least they're ideas!

The only thing that differentiates you and me from a couple of fourteen year old pyromaniacs is balistic glass!

We don't necessarily stand by our faults every time, but we will always stand by our methodologies and ethos.

Sticks and stones can only break bones; but words can shatter the soul

Back when I was a professional model-maker at Industrial Light & Magic, my specialty was hard-edged construction - spaceships, miniature sets, and architectural stuff. These objects were sometimes just 12 inches across yet needed enough detail to fill a movie screen.

These are people from everywhere, from Lawrence Livermore and JPL and Sandia National Labs, the FBI, all over the place, real scientists who see what we're doing, and they consistently thank us. "I agree your results aren't always right," they'll say, "but your methods are clearly showing that science is a re-creative process, and it's an interesting process because it's messy, and no other shows show that."

In theory, cars are fairly simple. If they don't start, it's either the fuel system or the electrical system. Teach yourself about the path of each in your engine and tracing it is fairly straightforward. But at the beginning, mastering each new system seems like an unreachable shore. The car is effectively a black box.

My dignity and good television - they'll never meet.

It's a treat to see the sun rise over the desert. What am I saying? It's a treat to fire off a rocket car over the desert!

There's few things that get you over your own crap more than working hard.

If I had any dignity, that would have been humiliating.

I think one of the defining moments of adulthood is the realization that nobody's going to take care of you. That you have to do the heavy lifting while you're here. And when you don't, well, you suffer the consequences.

Walking the floor at a con dressed as Chewbacca, you might as well be Bono. I mean it's ridiculous. People just walk up and grab you and hold you, because they love Chewbacca so much.

After all those years of doing remote detonations, where we just push a button and something explodes, to actually see a nice big fat line of black smoke heading toward something that will blow up is very satisfying.

Let's blow some stuff up.

Am I about to feel really, really stupid?

If I haven't had any long term psychological side effects from all the things I've already done on this show, this isn't gonna hurt much more.

Let's get on our knees and pray. I don't know to whom. Is there a patron saint of ballistics gel?

I love lists. Always have. when I was 14, I wrote down every dirty word I knew on file cards and placed them in alphabetical order. I have a thing about about collections, and a list is a collection with purchase. (Wired Magazine, "Step One: Make a List", October 2012)

Firemen have the coolest toys ever!

Greg Broadmore's fertile and twisted imagination has conjoined multiple genres, memories, and a sharp sense of pulp, colonialist nostalgia/parody in this lavish, fully realized, imaginative tour-de-force. It's Jules Verne meets Fritz Lang meets Tintin.
It's beyond Steampunk. It's clearly an insatiable passion for the talismans of a bygone civilization and it's slavish addiction to the early industrial age in all it's filigreed, ignorant glory. Greg has raised the bar.

I think LEGOs are one of the best toys ever developed.

We are always works in progress. You will hurt people you love, and help people you detest. This is called being a human and it happens to everyone.

My workplace is wherever I'm making something, which could be in a field in gold country, or in an abandoned warehouse on a military base.

The Internet is probably the most important technological advancement of my lifetime. Its strength lies in its open architecture and its ability to allow a framework where all voices can be heard.

Deadlines refine the mind. They remove variables like exotic materials and processes that take too long. The closer the deadline, the more likely you'll start thinking waaay outside the box.

I think the whole thing that Jamie [Hyneman] and I have in working together is that we are constantly simplifying each other's designs, and we both appreciate that the quickest and the dirtiest solution is usually the most elegant, the least expensive, and the fastest.

That's the show. it's like 5 minutes of science and then 10 minutes of me hurting myself.

I've always thought something that makes you laugh, it makes you laugh because there's a little bit of truth to it.

Whether it's the experiments on 'MythBusters' or my earlier work in special effects for movies, I've regularly had to do things that were never done before, from designing complex motion-control rigs to figuring out how to animate chocolate.

The explosions, like the urban legends, are a great way of bringing people in to watch, because it's really fun, and you know we're always going to give you a satisfying ending.

I just had one of those 'what the hell are we doing' moments.

Technology is usually there to let some process go on hidden in the background. For us on 'MythBusters,' we're always trying to make the process apparent. So, we have learned to try and never rely on a technological solution when an analogue one is in front of us.

The fact is that the British Museum had a complete specimen of a dodo in their collection up until the 18th century - it was actually mummified, skin and all - but in a fit of space-saving zeal, they actually cut off the head and they cut off the feet and they burned the rest in a bonfire.

I believe that inside every tool is a hammer.

My advice is keep your lips away from the spinning things.

Being a geek is all about learning the inventories of things.

I am now standing in a mixture of cooling fluid, gasoline, and cola.

I believe that rules do not make us moral; loving each other makes us moral.

Gravity. It's not just a good idea; it's the law!

The coolest toys don't have to be bought; they can be built. In fact, sometimes the only way they'll ever exist is if you make them yourself.

I'm not gonna shoot anyone with the pellet gun ... Not unless I have to!

There are women who are wishing that they were that piece of tape right now.

I go home at the end of the day and I rarely talk about what I did that day. So my wife's experience is just like that of anybody else whose husband goes away to a blue collar job and comes home bruised and dirty and often proud of the work that they're doing.

Jamie's gonna go take a break now, and i am going to continue the on-going process of making a fool of myself and go ahead and try it myself.

The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down.

I began furiously making lists, and more lists, until I was making lists of lists . . . .

I'm a lifelong movie addict, and one of my favorite projects is making replica props and costumes. Nearly every one of these - from R2D2 to Hellboy's revolver - ends with the paint job. And it's not just cosmetic. The paint literally tells a story: what this thing is made of, where it's been, what it's been used for, and for how long.

I wouldn't say jamie is an evil genius. I'm not sure he's evil and I'm not sure he's a genius.

Lists are how I parse and manage the world.

I had saved a few hundred photos of dodo skeletons into my 'Creative Projects' folder - it's a repository for my brain, everything that I could possibly be interested in. Any time I have an Internet connection, there's a sluice of stuff moving into there, everything from beautiful rings to cockpit photos.

I'm always going to be making costumes. It's one of the ways I relax my brain. In addition to the pleasure of having the piece, there is a deep and abiding pleasure for me assembling something in my head - learning to know something in its totality in my head, and then putting together all the constituent parts into a cohesive whole.

That was excellent! I mean, it didn't do anything, but it looked really cool!

Remember kids, I have life insurance.

Don't work for fools. It's not worth it. Getting paid less to work for people you like and believe in is much better for you (and your career) in the long run.

Jack of all trades, master of none, though often better than a master of one.