I approached him in a humble spirit: “Mr. Edison, please tell me what laboratory rules you want me to observe.” And right then and there I got my first surprise. He spat in the middle of the floor and yelled out, “Hell! there ain’t no rules around here!  We are tryin’ to accomplish somep’n!” And he walked off, leaving me flabbergasted.  ~Albert Einstein, c. 1903, quoted by Martin André Rosanoff in "Edison in His Laboratory," Harper’s Magazine, September 1932Variant: Hell, there are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something. http://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/19/edison-no-rules  (Thanks, Garson O’Toole of quoteinvestigator.com!)