Steve Jobs Quotes

617 Steve Jobs Quotes

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I wasn’t sure it was my kid, because I was pretty sure I wasn’t the only one she was sleeping with. She [Chrisann Brennan] and I were not really even going out when she got pregnant. She just had a room in our house.
Steve Jobs

I knew that she was not the person I wanted to marry, and we would never be happy, and it wouldn’t last long. I was all in favor of her getting an abortion, but she didn’t know what to do. She thought about it repeatedly and decided not to, or I don’t know that she ever really decided – I think time just decided for her.
Steve Jobs

When I did find out he was twenty-three when he got Joanne pregnant with me, I thought, whoa!
Steve Jobs

28% of the male population in the United States could be the father.
Steve Jobs

I wish I had handled it differently. I could not see myself as a father then, so I didn’t face up to it. But when the test results showed she was my daughter, it’s not true that I doubted it. I agreed to support her until she was eighteen and give some money to Chrisann as well. I found a house in Palo Alto and fixed it up and let them live there rent-free. Her mother found her great schools which I paid for. I tried to do the right thing. But if I could do it over, I would do a better job.
Steve Jobs

[Lisa – Local integrated systems architecture] Obviously it was named for my daughter.
Steve Jobs

We are inventing the future. Think about surfing on the front edge of a wave. It’s really exhilarating. Now think about dog-paddling at the tail end of that wave. It wouldn’t be anywhere near as much fun. Come down here and make a dent in the universe.
Steve Jobs

Since you’re so passionate about it, I’ll give you six days to prove me wrong.
Steve Jobs

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

People who are serious about software should make their own hardware.
Steve Jobs



A sh*thead who sucks.
Steve Jobs

I will let you invest a million dollars in Apple if you will open the kimono at PARC.
Steve Jobs

Let’s stop this bullsh*t!
Steve Jobs

[On Xerox’s GUI system] You’re sitting on a gold mine. I can’t believe Xerox is not taking advantage of this.
Steve Jobs

It was like a veil being lifted from my eyes. I could see what the future of computing was destined to be.
Steve Jobs

This is it! We’ve got to do it! How long would this take to implement?
Steve Jobs

Picasso had a saying – ‘good artists copy, great artists steel’ – and we have always been shameless about stealing great ideas.
Steve Jobs

They [Xerox] were copier-heads who had no clue about what a computer could do. They just grabbed defeat from the greatest victory in the computer industry. Xerox could have owned the entire computer industry.
Steve Jobs

And I want to be able to use it on Formica and my blue jeans.
Steve Jobs

We knew they hadn’t done it right, and that we could – at a fraction of the price.
Steve Jobs



Everything you’ve ever done in your life is sh*t, so why don’t you come work for me?
Steve Jobs

We were pretty worried about you.
Steve Jobs

There was a tug-of-war between people like me, who wanted a lean machine, and those from HP, like Couch, who were aiming for the corporate market.
Steve Jobs

I was upset and felt abandoned by Markkula. He and Scotty felt I wasn’t up to running the Lisa division. I brooded about it a lot.
Steve Jobs

Okay. I will give him zero.
Steve Jobs

[On Apple IPO] Tell me what happens to this stock that we priced at eighteen? Don’t you sell it to your good customers? If so, how can you charge me a 7% commission?
Steve Jobs

I never worried about money. I grew up in a middle-class family, so I never thought I would starve. And I learned at Atari that I could be an okay engineer, so I always knew I could get by. I was voluntarily poor when I was in college and India, and I lived a pretty simple life even when I was working. So I went from fairly poor, which was wonderful, because I didn’t have to worry about money, to being incredibly rich, when I also didn’t have to worry about money.
Steve Jobs

I watched people at Apple who made a lot of money and felt they had to live differently. Some of them bought a Rolls-Royce and various houses, each with a house manager and then someone to manage the house managers. Their wives got plastic surgery and turned into these bizarre people. This was not how I wanted to live. It’s crazy. I made a promise to myself that I’m not going to let this money ruin my life.
Steve Jobs

[Steve gave his parents $750k worth of stock] It was the first time in their lives they didn’t have a mortgage. They had a handful of their friends over for the party, and it was really nice. Still, they didn’t consider buying a nicer house. They weren’t interested in that. They had a life they were happy with.
Steve Jobs

I’ve got to learn to keep my feelings private.
Steve Jobs



How many of you are virgins?
Steve Jobs

When I went to school, it was right after the sixties and before this general wave of practical purposefulness had set in. Now students aren’t even thinking in idealistic terms, or at least nowhere near as much.
Steve Jobs

The idealistic wind of the sixties is still at our backs, though, and most of the people I know who are my age have that ingrained in them forever.
Steve Jobs

Jef [Raskin] was really pompous. He didn’t know much about interfaces. So I decided to nab some of his people who were really good, like Atkinson, bring in some of my own, take the thing over and build a less expensive Lisa, not some piece of junk.
Steve Jobs

We can make a computer that’s cheaper and better than Lisa, and get it out first.
Steve Jobs

They wanted to humor me and give me something to do, which was fine. It was like going back to the garage for me. I had my own ragtag team and I was in control.
Steve Jobs

[To Andy Herzfeld] Are you any good? We only want really good people working on the Mac, and I’m not sure you’re good enough.
Steve Jobs

[To Andy Herzfeld] I’ve got good news or you. You’re working on the Mac team now. Come with me.
Steve Jobs

What’s more important than working on the Macintosh? You’re just wasting your time with that! Who cares about the Apple II? The Apple II will be dead in a few years. The Macintosh is the future of Apple, and you’re going to start on it now! Come with me. I’m going to take you to your new desk. Here’s your new desk. Welcome to the Mac team!
Steve Jobs

You have to come into Apple tomorrow morning. I have a lot of stuff to show you.
Steve Jobs



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