But I think Steve's main contribution besides just the pure leadership is his passion for excellence. He's a perfectionist. Good enough isn't good enough. And also his creative spirit. You know he really, really wants to do something great.

I knew the Apple II was great when I bought it, but as I dug into the details it just completely blew me away the creative artistic approach that the designers had taken.

I did some products for the Apple II, most notably the first small low cost thermal printer, the Silent Type.

Working long hours being single helps because your time is yours. Once you have a family your time isn't all yours anymore. Most of the Mac team, we were in our mid-20's, most of us were single, and we were able to essentially devote our lives to it.

In fact when I first got my Apple II the first thing I did was turn it on and off, on and off, just because I had the power to do so, which I'd never had on a computer before.

I developed some unique software to public it on the web that I call the Folklore Project.

Part of Steve's job was to drum into us how important what we were doing actually would be to the world.

A lot of people thought Steve Jobs was a CEO of Apple but he never was until he came back to Apple in 1997.

But typically for a project like the Mac, the size we had was pretty good. And it has different stages. The team grows as you have to write manuals and do testing... though the Mac had no formal testing.

The Macintosh having shipped, his next agenda was to turn the rest of Apple into the Mac group. He had perceived the rest of Apple wasn't as creative or motivated as the Mac team, and what you need to take over the company are managers, not innovators or technical people.

I was a grad student at UC Berkeley when I bought my Apple II and it suddenly because a lot more interesting than school.

Scotty heard that I was thinking about quitting Apple because of his actions, so he called me into his office and asked what it would take for me to stay? I said, maybe if I could work on the Mac project, which Steve had just taken over from Jef Raskin.

But I think Steve's main contribution besides just the pure leadership is his passion for excellence. He's a perfectionist. Good enough isn't good enough. And also his creative spirit. You know he really, really wants to do something great.

I left General Magic in 1996 to become an Internet hobbyist - got a T-1 line to my house. At one point I had all four food banks of the Bay Area hosted from this house here.

We were developing an innovative Personal Information Manager called Chandler but a couple years ago I took off from that to do a project writing down my memoirs essentially, reminiscing about the development of the Macintosh.

I got bitten by the free software bug in February of 1998 around the time of the Mozilla announcement.

The Apple II was not designed like an ordinary product. It used crazy tricks everywhere.

Apple was our benefactor at starting General Magic, but about a year later decided they would rather BE General Magic and tried to make us blink out of existence... which we eventually did, but it took a few years.

I started working at Apple about 18 months after I bought my Apple II.

People who work on the user interface side need to have empathy as a key characteristic. But if you are writing device drivers you don't really need to understand humans so well.

As you know, Microsoft eventually kind of grabbed the gold ring out of Apple's hands, I guess.

I left Apple in April of 1984, pretty soon after the introduction of the Mac.

Being idealistic really helps you overcome some of the many obstacles put in your path.

Working long hours being single helps because your time is yours. Once you have a family your time isnt all yours anymore. Most of the Mac team we were in our mid 20s most of us were single and we were able to essentially devote our lives to it.

Part of Steves job was to drum into us how important what we were doing actually would be to the world.

Being idealistic really helps you overcome some of the many obstacles put in your path.

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.

Excellence is the unlimited ability to improve the quality of what you have to offer.

Poetry is an art, the easiest to dabble in, but the hardest to reach true excellence.

As a preacher of the Gospel, our late venerable Bishop must have been heard, to form an adequate conception of his superior excellence and commanding eloquence.

Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.

It is my sincere hope that hospitals across Indiana, and America, continue to strive for excellence when it comes to providing medical care. This proposed rule will be harmful to communities who wish to upgrade their medical facilities.

Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them.

When a book raises your spirit, and inspires you with noble and manly thoughts, seek for no other test of its excellence. It is good, and made by a good workman.

I mentioned the non-competitive spirit explicitly, because these days, excellence is a fashionable concept. But excellence is a competitive notion, and that is not what we are heading for: we are heading for perfection.

Excellence is a process that should occupy all our days.

It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves.

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Therefore let men withdraw themselves from errors; and laying aside corrupt superstitions, let them acknowledge their Father and Lord, whose excellence cannot be estimated, nor His greatness perceived, nor His beginning comprehended.

What we do is look for high standards of excellence in the arts.

Simplicity in character, in manners, in style; in all things the supreme excellence is simplicity.

I've spent my life pursing excellence as an artist, which is what I always wanted to do anyhow.

We're thrilled to expand our relationship, knowing that with the great team at the Music Group, Word, and Warner Bros., and with their proven record of excellence, we're looking ahead to an even brighter future for Curb.

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Dullness in matters of government is a good sign, and not a bad one - in particular, dullness in parliamentary government is a test of its excellence, an indication of its success.

My philosophy all my life has been the pursuit of excellence.

Excellence is not a skill. It is an attitude.

The noblest search is the search for excellence.

The test of the artist does not lie in the will with which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces.