Walter Isaacson Quotes

In general I don't like definitions, but 'Minimalist' is a term that means elegance and openness, so I would prefer to be called a Minimalist than something else.

What is so brilliant about the gadgets is their simplicity.

I have my own definition of minimalism, which is that which is created with a minimum of means.

I used to have this debate with Steve Jobs, and he would always say, 'You guys are doing too much stuff.' He did a good job of doing one or two things really well. We'd like to have a bigger impact on the world by doing more things.

You get really scrappy when you're making things for zero dollars, and you just have to keep thinking like that. It's not like, 'Oh, we now have a little bit more money, let's do things differently.' If you just keep boiling it down to the simplest possible way to make it, I think that always ends up being the best.

I have sometimes thought the power of computers had exceeded our ability to use them, but Mr. Jobs and his team kept giving us devices that made indispensable things easier in ways you never thought of.

So that’s our approach. Very simple, and we’re really shooting for Museum of Modern Art quality. The way we’re running the company, the product design, the advertising, it all comes down to this: Let’s make it simple. Really simple.” Apple’s design mantra would remain the one featured on its first brochure: “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

Good design means as little design as possible.

Good design is as little design as possible. Less, but better - because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. That's not simple.

Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product.

The iPod is a perfect example of Steve's [Jobs] methodology of starting with the user and looking at the entire end-to-end system.

The most reliable components are the ones you leave out.

I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.

But make not more business necessary than is so; and rather lessen than augment work for thyself.

Simplicity is not the absence of clutter.

We have a passion for keeping things simple.

I started passing out the schematics and the code listings for the computer, telling everyone here it is. It's small, it's simple, it's inexpensive: Build your own. No idea to start a company. Steve Jobs came by later and say, you know, people are interested. Why don't we start a company?

Steve Jobs gave a small private presentation about the iTunes Music Store to some independent record label people. My favorite line of the day was when people kept raising their hand saying, "Does it do [x]?", "Do you plan to add [y]?". Finally Jobs said, "Wait wait - put your hands down. Listen: I know you have a thousand ideas for all the cool features iTunes could have. So do we. But we don't want a thousand features. That would be ugly. Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.

It's actually very difficult to make something both simple and good.

I work using the Brian Eno school of thinking: limit your tools, focus on one thing and just make it work… You become very inventive with the restrictions you give yourself.

I think we definitely want to focus on the simplicity aspect because it's something that's built into the culture even here at Twitter. Constraints inspire creativity.

A lot of what we are doing is getting design out of the way.

It has often been said there’s so much to be read, you never can cram all those words in your head. So the writer who breeds more words than he needs is making a chore for the reader who reads. That's why my belief is the briefer the brief is, the greater the sigh of the reader's relief is. And that's why your books have such power and strength. You publish with shorth! (Shorth is better than length.)