Quote

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.

Walter Isaacson

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Walter Isaacson
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: May 20
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
Hands
Field
Confounding
Fields
Indomitable
Style
Rhetorical
Hand
Eagerness
Purpose
Charismatic
Fact
Distortion
Facts
Bend
Reality
Fit
Lange

More quotes by Walter Isaacson

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I think one problem we've had is that people who are smart and creative and innovative as engineers went into financial engineering.
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I think Leonardo da Vinci teaches us the value of both being focused on things that fascinate us but also, at times, being distracted and deciding to pursue some shiny new idea that you happen to stumble upon. Balancing intense focus with being interested in a whole lot of different things is something that we have to do in the Internet age.
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The childhood that Paul and Clara Jobs created for their new son was, in many ways, a stereotype of the late 1950s. When Steve was two they adopted a girl they named Patty, and three years later they moved to a tract house in the suburbs.
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We have to compete in a universe of 200 networks, so we have to carve out our own niche, and to me, that niche is just basic shoe-leather journalism with some good journalists at the helm you can trust as presenters.
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And if you don't have your ears open, you're not going to be able to figure out what you should be doing.
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The Mona Lisa, to me, is the greatest emotional painting ever done. The way the smile flickers makes it a work of both art and science, because Leonardo understood optics, and the muscles of the lips, and how light strikes the eye - all of it goes into making the Mona Lisa's smile so mysterious and elusive.
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Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.
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Jobs did not know that Sculley had told Eisenstat he wanted to quit, but by then it didn't matter. Overnight, he had changed his mind and decided to stay. Despite the blowup the day before, he was still eager for Jobs to like him. So he agreed to meet the next afternoon.
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Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.
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Mainly, the reason people who didn't succeed had trouble because they had trouble forming teams. They didn't know how to collaborate.
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For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence.
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I don't think there was enough skepticism because I think most of us kind of believed that Saddam Hussein was building biological, chemical, and perhaps even, nuclear weapons.
Walter Isaacson
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if you can't keep him interested, that's your fault.
Walter Isaacson
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What are the five products you want to focus on? Get rid of the rest, because they’re dragging you down. They’re turning you into Microsoft. They’re causing you to turn out products that are adequate but not great.
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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)
Walter Isaacson
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I think when you're looking for people to interview, you want to make it fair and honest. You're not just bringing people on so you can beat them up or, you know, make fools out of them or something
Walter Isaacson
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The best and most innovative products don't always win...(it's an) aesthetic flaw in how the universe worked
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I think it's very important to have a sense of balance in covering the war, but you don't have to be morally neutral about terrorism.
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I discovered that the best innovation is sometimes the company, the way you organize a company. The whole notion of how you build a company is fascinating. Steve Jobs
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i had no idea what i wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.
Walter Isaacson