Walter Isaacson Quotes

I had been listening to a lot of Bach. All of a sudden the wheat field was playing Bach. It was the most wonderful feeling of my life up to that point. I felt like the conductor of this symphony with...

I hate the way people use slide presentations instead of thinking, Jobs later recalled. People would confront a problem by creating a presentation. I wanted them to engage, to hash things out at the t...

I liked the film because it was about taking risks and learning to let those you love take risks, Jobs said.

I love it when you can bring really great design and simple capability to something that doesn’t cost much, he said as he pointed out the clean elegance of the houses. It was the original vision for A...

I see God in the instruments and mechanisms that work reliably.

I think Henry Ford once said, If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, ‘A faster horse!’ People don’t know what they want until you show it to them. That’s why I never rely on...

I wanted to buy it because I was really into computer graphics, Jobs recalled. I realized they were way ahead of others in combining art and technology, which is what I’ve always been interested in.

If the object were to have feelings, these would be based on its desire to fulfill its essence. The purpose of a glass, for example, is to hold water; if it had feelings, it would be happy when full a...

If we want to be more like Leonardo, we have to be fearless about changing our minds based on new information.

In classic Steve fashion, he would agree to something, but it would never happen, said Lack. He would set you up and then pull it off the table. He’s pathological, which can be useful in negotiations....

In his excitement, Jobs began to take over the daily management of the Lisa project, which was being run by John Couch, the former HP engineer.

It conjured up memories of what he sounded like when he was young, and how, as in his favorite Dylan song, he had remained forever young. They push the human race forward

It’s also a narrative of how they collaborated and why their ability to work as teams made them even more creative.

Laurene, Eve, Erin, and Lisa at the Corinth Canal in Greece, 2006: For young people, this

Leonardo at twenty-nine was more easily distracted by the future than he was focused on the present.

Look longer at the picture. It vibrates with Leonardo’s understanding that no moment is discrete, self-contained, frozen, delineated, just as no boundary in nature is sharply delineated. As with the r...

NeXT computer. But gradually he was learning his lesson. In building devices like the iPod,

Oddest of all, there is this entry: Go every Saturday to the hot bath where you will see naked men.10 We can imagine Leonardo wanting to do

Over dinner at a Georgian restaurant that specialized in shish kebab, Jobs continued his rant.

Paul e Clara Jobs eram pais amorosos e estavam dispostos a adaptar suas vidas à situação de ter um filho que era muito inteligente — e também teimoso. Eles se esforçariam muito para servi-lo, tratá-lo...