He was rumoured to have taken LSD, thought Bill Gates was a rip-off merchant and berated Barack Obama saying he was headed for one term presidency.
Now the outbursts, observations and anecdotes of Steve Jobs, the fiercely controlling Apple founder, are available in print and in his own words, as the official Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson goes on sale today.
Here is a taste of the most striking Jobs' quotes from the Amazon best seller:
On LSD: "one of the most important things in my life."
On allowing the biography: "I wanted my kids to know me," Isaacson quoted Jobs as saying in their final interview. "I wasn't always there for them and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did."
To Barack Obama: "You're headed for a one-term presidency.." he said with reference to Obama's business policies.
On the US education system: "Until the teachers' unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform."
Jobs on Bill Gates: "He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger."
He didn't stop there: "Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything, which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas."
On meeting his biological father: "It was amazing," Jobs later said of the revelation. "I had been to that restaurant a few times, and I remember meeting the owner. He was Syrian. Balding. We shook hands."
Nevertheless, Jobs still had no desire to see him. "I was a wealthy man by then, and I didn't trust him not to try to blackmail me or go to the press about it."
On refusing an operation for pancreatic cancer: "I didn't want my body to be opened ... I didn't want to be violated in that way,"
On the future of Apple: “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use.”
“It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud,” Jobs told Isaacson. “It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”