Quotes from Martin Cooper

I'm a science-fiction fan. All science fiction ends up being reality.

I think young people don't appreciate that when you're in your 70s, you'll lose patience for techie stuff and you may decide that you want a simple device.

As I walked down the street while talking on the phone, sophisticated New Yorkers gaped at the sight of someone actually moving around while making a phone call. Remember that in 1973, there weren't cordless telephones, let alone cellular phones.

We thought our vision was right, which was that someday everyone would be walking around carrying phones with them.

If we don't blow ourselves up, this is going to be a really wonderful world.

Even though you can't get along without your smartphone, there are not many essential services on your smartphone. They're mostly convenience; you could live without it. Essential means you die without it. A gadget that warns you're about to have a heart attack - that's essential. We're about to go into that phase with smartphones.

The instruction manual for my Motorola phone is bigger and heavier than the phone.

It doesn't take a cell phone to make a person rude. There are rude people all over the place. But people are learning. I have never heard a cell phone ring in the movies. We are going to learn how to live with the advantages of new technology.

The only thing that was in my mind when we made that first phone call was, 'Is it going to work?' We had all these parts hand soldered together, engineers standing by with the soldering iron - just in case.

There are all kinds of features that will become part of cell phones that will help us offload the more laborious things of life and let us focus on doing the things humans do well, like abstract thinking and creating.

I'm at the doctor's office. I'm in the waiting room. And there's this guy on his cell phone, talking really loud. Does he think he owns the place? Apparently. I think this is so offensive. But you have to remember: It doesn't take a cell phone to make people rude. People were rude before there were cell phones.

I think if you have a big enough wallet you can solve anything but the key is to solve it with the least amount of expenditure.

I never really started to carry a cellular phone until it was small enough so I could put it on my belt and not even feel it was there.

There were a lot of naysayers over the years. People would say, 'Why are we spending all of this money? Are you sure this cellular thing will turn out to be something?'

What else is there in life but to accomplish things and to do things? Sure I like to be on a beach on occasion, I like to ski on occasion, but as long as I have the ability to make a contribution, I am going to keep going.

If you think you can experience the power of the Internet on a 1-inch screen, you've got to be out of your mind.

People thought I was crazy thinking about a phone you can just put in your pocket.

The first cellular systems didn't become commercially available until 1983. Most of the phones before then were in fact car phones.

The best way to get people to think outside the box is not to create the box in the first place.

The first cell phone model weighed over one kilo, and you could only talk for 20 minutes before the battery ran out. Which is just as well because you would not be able to hold it up for much longer.

I think projects often fail because people do not have a clear understanding at the start what they are trying to deliver.

Once you've lived in Del Mar or the San Diego area, why would you want to live anyplace else? It's the neatest place, whether it's the culture or the small-town atmosphere the whole San Diego area has.

Privacy is a thing of the past.

What's the biggest function of a cell phone? What does a cell phone do for humanity? It makes people more productive.