Walter Isaacson Quotes

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

“There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that's the truth”

“Was he smart? No, not exceptionally. Instead, he was a genius.”

“Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.”

“Otherwise, as Dylan says, if you're not busy being born, you're busy dying.”

“The older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter. The Zune was crappy because the people at Microsoft don’t really love music or art the way we do. We won because we personally love music.”

“Steve Jobs: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint.”

“I think different religions are different doors to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I don’t. It’s the great mystery. (Steve Jobs)”

“On the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Jobs what type of market research he had done. Jobs responded by scoffing, "Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?”

“if you can't keep him interested, that's your fault.”

“I think the biggest innovations of the twenty-first century will be the intersection of biology and technology. A new era is beginning, just like the digital one was when I was his age.”

“The reality distortion field was a confounding mélange of a charismatic rhetorical style, indomitable will, and eagerness to bend any fact to fit the purpose at hand”

“Simply handing over your iPod to a friend, your blind date, or the total stranger sitting next to you on the plane opens you up like a book." (Steven Levy)”

“Asked about the fact that Apple's iTunes software for Windows computers was extremely popular, Jobs joked, 'It's like giving a glass of ice water to somebody in hell.”

“Form follows emotion”

“Innovation requires articulation.”

“Let’s Be Pirates!”

“The creativity that can occur when a feel for both the humanities and the sciences combine in one strong personality was the topic that most interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be a key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century.”

“Relativity is a simple concept. It asserts that the fundamental laws of physics are the same whatever your state of motion.”