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More generally, I made an effort to leave out things that weren't relevant to the main narrative themes of the book, namely that there were two sides to Steve Jobs: the romantic, poetic, countercultural rebel on one side, and the serious businessperson on the other.

Walter Isaacson

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Walter Isaacson
Age: 72
Born: 1952
Born: May 20
Biographer
Journalist
Writer
New Orleans
Louisiana
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Pretend to be completely in control and people will assume that you are.
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For some people, miracles serve as evidence of God's existence.
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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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Politics is for the present, while our equations are for eternity.
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Sometimes, to relieve stress, he would soak his feet in the toilet, a practice that was not as soothing for his collegues.
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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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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.
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I actually think Bill Gates is conventionally smarter, even though it's a dumb word, but mental processing power - I've watched him use four different screens, process information, get to the right answer, boom boom boom.
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I think America is really well-positioned, because we do train people to be creative and sometimes resist authority, which helps in being an innovator. I think you're going to see for the next phase of the revolution all sorts of wonderful ways of connecting art and literature and journalism into new forms of digital expression.
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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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The best and most innovative products don't always win...(it's an) aesthetic flaw in how the universe worked
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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.
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If you want to be a great American, you have got to understand Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, how the American Revolution happened. I think if you want to be a good citizen of the digital age, it helps to feel comfortable with both the people and the ways of thinking that created the digital revolution.
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Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time. “There is no one better at turning off the noise that is going on around him,” Cook said. “That allows him to focus on a few things and say no to many things. Few people are really good at that.
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If you act like you can do something, then it will work.
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If you truly have a passion for what you do, you will care even about the parts unseen.
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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)
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On Startups: I hate it when people call themselves entrepreneurs when what they're really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on.
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Picasso had a saying - 'good artists copy, great artists steal' - and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
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Physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance.
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