It's just not right that so many things don't work when they should. I don't think that will change for a long time.

I was kind of amazed because I first found out about blue boxes in an article in Esquire magazine labeled fiction. That article was the most truthful article I've ever read in my life... That article was so truthful, and it told about a mistake in the phone company that let you dial phone calls anywhere in the world. What an amazing thing to discover.

A lot of things seem to be worth almost no money. but if you do them very well, and they help people fill a need, there's a great business you can build around that.

I wanted to be a fifth grade teacher because my teacher was so important to me and was giving me the education that was going to take me through life and through this world.

I had no money. I had no savings account.So I would bring down my color TV set, a Sears TV with a cable snaked into it - they had no video-in back in those days - and hooked it up to the circuit of very few chips and then a little keyboard you could type on. And I was trying to impress people with how did he do it with fewer chips than anyone could ever imagine?

I have never left the company. I keep a tiny residual salary to this day because that's where my loyalty should be forever. I want to be an "employee" on the company data base. I won't engineer, I'd rather be basically retired, due to my family. (talking about his relationship with Apple Inc)

Most inventors and engineers I've met are like me. They're shy and they live in their heads. The very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone.