Steve Jobs Quotes

Andy Hertzfeld: We're not a pit crew at Daytona. This can't be fixed in seconds.
Steve Jobs: You didn't have seconds, you had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time.
Andy Hertzfeld: Well, someday you'll have to tell us how you did it.

Movie: Steve Jobs
[from trailer] Steve Wozniak: What do you do? You're not an engineer. You're not a designer. You can't put a hammer to a nail. I built the circuit board! The graphical interface was stolen! So how come ten times in a day I read Steve Jobs is a genius? What do you do?
Steve Jobs: Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Wozniak: I was angry. You were saying things about the Apple II, and the way you were treating the team...
Steve Jobs: Woz, you get a free pass for life. I gotta get back on stage; we got like, two minutes of rehearsal time left.
Steve Wozniak: Do you understand how condescending that just was? Maybe you don't...
Steve Jobs: I don't wanna see you get dragged off...
Steve Wozniak: I get a free pass for life from you? You give out the passes? You give them to me?
Steve Jobs: You're gonna have a stroke, little buddy.
Steve Wozniak: What did you do? What did you do? Why has Lisa not heard of me?
Steve Jobs: How many fourth graders have heard of you?
Steve Wozniak: You can't write code... you're not an engineer... you're not a designer... you can't put a hammer to a nail. I built the circuit board. The graphical interface was stolen from Xerox Parc. Jef Raskin was the leader of the Mac team before you threw him off his own project! Someone else designed the box! So how come ten times in a day, I read Steve Jobs is a genius? What do you do?
Steve Jobs: I play the orchestra, and you're a good musician. You sit right there and you're the best in your row.
Steve Wozniak: I came here to clear the air. Do you know why I came here?
Steve Jobs: Didn't you just answer that?
Steve Wozniak: I came here 'cause you're gonna get killed. Your computer's gonna fail. You got a college and university advisory board telling you they need a powerful work station for two to three thousand. You priced NeXT at sixty-five hundred, and that doesn't include the optional three thousand dollar hardrive which people will discover isn't optional, because the optical disk is too weak to do anything, and the twenty-five hundred dollar laser printer brings the total to twelve thousand dol

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Wozniak: It's not binary. You can be decent and gifted at the same time.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: [on Bill Gates]He dropped out of a better school than I dropped out of.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: God sent his only son on a suicide mission, but people like him because he made trees.

Movie: Steve Jobs
John Sculley: You're gonna end me, aren't you?
Steve Jobs: You're being ridiculous. I'm gonna sit center court and watch you do it yourself.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: The two most significant events of the twentieth century: the Allies win the war, and this.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: I'm gonna put music in your pocket.
Lisa Brennan: What?
Steve Jobs: A hundred songs. A thousand songs. Five hundred songs. Somewhere between five hundred and a thousand songs. Right in your pocket. Because I can't stand looking at that ridiculous Walkman anymore. You're carrying around a brick playing a cassette tape. We're not savages. I'm gonna put a thousand songs in your pocket.
Lisa Brennan: You can do that?
Steve Jobs: We're very close. All I have to do really is wipe out the record business as we know it and we'll be all set.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: What if the computer was a beautiful object? Something you wanted to look at and have in your home. And what if instead of it being in the right hands, it was in everyone's hands?
John Sculley: We'd be talking about the most tectonic shift in the status quo since...
Steve Jobs: ...ever.

Movie: Steve Jobs
John Sculley: Why do people like you who were adopted feel like they were rejected instead of selected?

Movie: Steve Jobs
Joanna Hoffman: You don't think you're having a bizarre overreaction to a nineteen-year-old girl allowing her mother to list her own house?
Steve Jobs: She could 'a tried...
Joanna Hoffman: She's supposed to stop her mother - that particular mother - from living...
Steve Jobs: She gave Chrisann her blessing to sell the house and she did it to spite me!
Joanna Hoffman: I don't care if she put a pipe bomb in the water heater! You're going to fix it now!
Steve Jobs: She's been acting weird for months. She's turned on me.
Joanna Hoffman: [knocks papers onto the floor]Fix it.
Steve Jobs: What the...
Joanna Hoffman: [knocks more papers onto the floor]Fix it, Steve.
Steve Jobs: Take it easy!
Joanna Hoffman: [knocks even more papers onto the floor]Fix it or I quit, how 'bout that? I quit and you never see me again, how 'bout that?
Steve Jobs: [concerned]Tell me what's wrong with you this morning.
Joanna Hoffman: [has tears in her eyes]What's been wrong with me for nineteen years. I have been a witness, and I tell you I've been complicit. I love you, Steve. You know how much. I love that you don't care how much money a person makes; you care what they make. But what you make isn't supposed to be the best part of you. When you're a father... that's what's supposed to be the best part of you, and it's caused me two decades of agony. Steve... that it is for you... the worst. It's a little thing... it's a very small thing. Fix it. Fix it now or you can contact me at my new job working anywhere I want.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: I don't want people to dislike me. I'm indifferent to whether they dislike me.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Joanna Hoffman: I'm begging you to manage expectations.
Steve Jobs: Have I ever let you down?
Joanna Hoffman: Every single goddamn time.
Steve Jobs: Then I'm due.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Wozniak: We will know soon enough if you are Leonardo da Vinci or just think you are.

Movie: Steve Jobs
John Sculley: I can't put it more simply than this: We need to put our resources into updating the Apple II.
Steve Jobs: By taking resources from the Mac.
John Sculley: It's failing. That's a fact.
Steve Jobs: It's overpriced.
John Sculley: There is no evidence...
Steve Jobs: I'm the evidence! I'm the world's leading expert on the Mac, John! What's your resume?
John Sculley: You're issuing contradictory instructions, you're insubordinate, you make people miserable, our top engineers are fleeing to Sun, Dell, HP, Wall Street doesn't know who's driving the bus, we've lost hundreds of millions in value and I'm the CEO of Apple, Steve, that's my resume!
Steve Jobs: But before that, you sold carbonated sugar water right? I sat in a fucking garage with Wozniak and invented the future, because artists lead and hacks ask for a show of hands.
John Sculley: Alright, well... this guy's outta control. I'm perfectly willing to hand in my resignation tonight. But if you want me to stay, you can't have Steve. Settle him out. He can keep a share of stock so he gets our newsletter. I'd like the secretary to call for a vote.
Steve Jobs: I fucking dare you.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: The exit signs have to be off or we're not gonna get a full blackout.
Andrea Cunningham: We've spoken to the building manager and the fire marshal.
Steve Jobs: And?
Andrea Cunningham: They're absolutely no way they're letting us turn the exit signs off.
Steve Jobs: I'll pay whatever the fine is.
Andrea Cunningham: The fine is they're gonna come in and tell everyone to leave.
Steve Jobs: You explained to the fire marshal that we're in here changing the world.
Andrea Cunningham: Well...
Steve Jobs: Did you?
Andrea Cunningham: Yes, but unless we can also change the properties of fire, he doesn't care.
Joanna Hoffman: Steve...
Steve Jobs: If a fire causes a stampede to the unmarked exits, it will have been well worth it for those who survive. For those who don't, less so, but still pretty good.
Andrea Cunningham: Listen...
Steve Jobs: I need it to go black, real black. Get rid of the exit signs, and don't let me know how you did it.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: The musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Andy Hertzfeld: Skip over - everything else is working, skip over the voice demo.
Steve Jobs: Fix it.
Andy Hertzfeld: In forty minutes.
Steve Jobs: Fix it.
Andy Hertzfeld: I can't.
Steve Jobs: Who's the person who can?
Andy Hertzfeld: I'm the person who can, and I can't.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: They won't know what they're looking at or why they like it but they'll know they want it.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: What is your problem?
Joanna Hoffman: I don't know, but I'm sure it can be traced directly back to you.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: If a fire causes a stampede to the unmarked exits, it'll have been well worth it for those who survive.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Andy Hertzfeld: It's a system error.
Steve Jobs: [annoyed]Fix it!
Andy Hertzfeld: [incredulous]Fix it?
Steve Jobs: Yeah!
Andy Hertzfeld: We're not a pit crew at Daytona. This can't be fixed in seconds.
Steve Jobs: You didn't have seconds. You had three weeks. The universe was created in a third of that time.
Andy Hertzfeld: Well, someday, you'll have to tell us how you did it.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Joanna Hoffman: Please, you have to tell me why it's so important for it to say hello.
Steve Jobs: Hollywood, they make computers scary things. See how this reminds you of a friendly face? That the disk slot is a goofy grin? It's warm and it's playful and it needs to say hello!
Joanna Hoffman: The computer in 2001 said hello all the time and it still scared the shit out of me.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Wozniak: This whole place was built by the Apple II... you were built by the Apple II!
Steve Jobs: As a matter of fact I was destroyed by the Apple II and its open systems so that hackers and hobbyists could build ham radios or something! And then it nearly destroyed Apple when you spent all your money on it and developed a grand total of no new products.
Steve Wozniak: The Newton...
Steve Jobs: The little box of garbage. You guys came up with the Newton, it's like you want people to know that. This is a product launch not a luncheon, and the last thing I want to do is connect the iMac to the...
Steve Wozniak: ...to the only successful product that this company has ever made. I'm sorry to be blunt, but that happens to be the truth. The Lisa was a failure, the Macintosh was a failure. I don't like talking like this, but I am tired of being Ringo when I know I was John.
Steve Jobs: Everybody loves Ringo.
Steve Wozniak: And I am tired of being patronized by you!
Steve Jobs: You think John became John by winning a raffle, Woz? You think he tricked somebody or hit George Harrison over the head? He was John because he was John.
Steve Wozniak: He was John 'cause he wrote 'Ticket to Ride', and I wrote the Apple II.
Andrea Cunningham: [to the people in the auditorium watching this]Everybody, I want to...
Steve Jobs: Nobody moves!
Steve Jobs: [to Woz]You made a beautiful board, which by the way you were willing to give out for free, so don't tell me how you built Apple. If it weren't for me, you'd be the easiest 'A' at Homestead High School.
Steve Wozniak: [gesturing around the auditorium]These people live or die by your praise, so here's your chance: acknowledge that something good happened that you weren't in the room for!
Steve Jobs: [a

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: [to Steve Wozniak]You came a half inch from putting this company out of business. Now who do I see about that? I'm letting you keep your job. You get a pass.
Steve Wozniak: You know, when people used to ask me what the difference was between me and Steve Jobs, I would say Steve is the big picture guy and I like the solid workbench. When people ask the difference now, I say Steve is an asshole. Your products are better than you are, brother.
Steve Jobs: That's the idea, brother, and knowing that... that's the difference!

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: I'm poorly made.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs: [gesturing to his desktop computer]You see how this reminds you of a friendly face? It's warm and it's playful and inviting and it needs to say, Hello!
Joanna Hoffman: If you keep alienating people for no reason, there'll be no one left for it to say Hello! to.

Movie: Steve Jobs
Lisa Brennan: My mother may be a troubled woman, but what's your excuse? That's why I'm not impressed with your story, dad.

Movie: Steve Jobs
John Sculley: The board believes you're no longer necessary to this company.
Steve Jobs: I sat in a garage and invented the future because artists lead and hacks ask for a show of hands!

Movie: Steve Jobs