“People think computers will keep them from making mistakes”

We can learn from IBM’s successful history that you don’t have to have the best product to become number one.

Only taking the best evidence available at the present time,

Money coming in says I’ve made the right marketing decisions

The future lies in designing and selling computers that people don’t realize are computers at all.

There’ll be a special place in hell for the tape back-up people.

The small businessman is smart; he realizes there’s no free lunch. On the other hand, he knows where to go to get a good inexpensive sandwich.

Venture capitalists are like lemmings jumping on the software bandwagon.

Adequacy is sufficient. All else is superfluous.

I liken myself to Henry Ford and the auto industry, I give you 90 percent of what most people need.

I take what I see work. I’m a strict believer in the scientific principle of believing nothing,

With bundled machines you can throw away the hardware and keep the software, and it’s still a good buy.

Adequacy is sufficient.

You can’t learn anything from being perfect.

The guy who knows about computers is the last person you want to have creating documentation for people who don’t understand computers.

They’re wrong. With computers you make mistakes faster.

The most valuable thing you can make is a mistake.

When the Mac first came out, Newsweek asked me what I [thought] of it. I said: Well, it’s the first personal computer worth criticizing.

I don’t know how many of you have ever met Dijkstra, but you probably know that arrogance in computer science is measured in nano-Dijkstras.

My computer’s memory stores a million phone numbers with perfect accuracy, but I have to stop and think to recall my own.

Computer memories work in a manner alien to human memories. My memory lets me recognize the faces of my friends, whereas my own computer never even recognizes me.

Because computers have memories, we imagine that they must be something like our human memories, but that is simply not true.

Run for your lives-the computers are invading. Awesomely powerful computers tackling ever more important tasks with awkward, old-fashioned interfaces.

Computers no longer interface with humans–they interact, and the interaction will become steadily deeper, more subtle, and more crucial to our collective sanity and ultimate survival.

In turn, we will be tempted to kill our computers, but we won’t dare because we are already utterly, irreversibly dependent on these hopeful monsters that make modern life possible.