A lot of the things that will really improve the world fortunately aren't dependent on Washington doing something different.

Whether I'm at the office, at home, or on the road, I always have a stack of books I'm looking forward to reading.

I don't think there's a... boundary between digital media and print media. Every magazine is doing an online version.

In terms of mathematics textbooks, why can't you have the scale of a national market? Right now, we have a Texas textbook that's different from a California textbook that's different from a Massachusetts textbook. That's very expensive.

I don't think there's anything unique about human intelligence.

The potential financial reward for building the 'next Windows' is so great that there will never be a shortage of new technologies seeking to challenge it.

Historically, privacy was almost implicit, because it was hard to find and gather information. But in the digital world, whether it's digital cameras or satellites or just what you click on, we need to have more explicit rules - not just for governments but for private companies.

Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing.

In 80% of the world, energy will be bought where it is economic. You have to help the rest of the world get energy at a reasonable price.

Certainly there's a phenomenon around open source. You know free software will be a vibrant area. There will be a lot of neat things that get done there.

We all sort of do want incentives for creative people to still exist at a certain level. You know, maybe rock stars shouldn't make as much; who knows? But you want as much creativity to take place in the future as took place in the past.

This whole phenomenon of the computer in a library is an amazing thing.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well

For a highly motivated learner, it's not like knowledge is secret and somehow the Internet made it not secret. It just made knowledge easy to find. If you're a motivated enough learner, books are pretty good.

You can always think of something like the Xbox 360 as a super set-top box that can do everything the set-top box does, but then have the graphics to do the games as well.

With tech companies, whoever's the leader is always questioned, you know. They say, 'Is this the end of them?' And - there's more - more times people think that's the case than it really is the case.

In energy, you have to plan and do research way in advance, sometimes decades in advance to get a new system that's safer, doesn't require us to go around the world to get all our oil.

On my desk I have three screens, synchronized to form a single desktop. I can drag items from one screen to the next. Once you have that large display area, you'll never go back, because it has a direct impact on productivity.

In the old generation, if one kid bought a PlayStation 2 and the other kid bought an Xbox, at his house you played PlayStation, at your house you played Xbox. Now that it's online, all those early buyers who... you want to play with, they've got their reputation online of who they are and how good they are at these games.

If you're a person struggling to eat and stay healthy, you might have heard about Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali, but you'll never have heard of Bill Gates

If you're low-income in the United States, you have a higher chance of going to jail than you do of getting a four-year degree. And that doesn't seem entirely fair.

Microsoft Research has a thing called the Sense Cam that, as you walk around, it's taking photos all the time. And the software will filter and find the ones that are interesting without having to think, 'Let's get out the camera and get that shot.' You just have that, and software helps you pick what you want.

Everyone needs a coach. It doesn't matter whether you're a basketball player, a tennis player, a gymnast or a bridge player.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

If you are born poor its not your mistake, But if you die poor its your mistake.

If you think your teacher is tough, wait ’til you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure

If you can’t make it good, at least make it look good

It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

I can understand wanting to have millions of dollars, there’s a certain freedom, meaningful freedom, that comes with that. ‘But once you get much beyond that, I have to tell you, it’s the same hamburger.

If your culture doesn’t like geeks, you are in real trouble.

“I really had a lot of dreams when I was a kid, and I think that a great deal of that grew out of the fact that I had a chance to read a lot

“People always fear change. People feared electricity when it was invented, didn’t they.”

“Find yourself.”

“To win big, you sometimes need to take big risks.” 

“Software is a great combination between artistry and engineering.”

“Exposure from a young age to the realities of the world is a super-big thing.”

I was lucky to be involved and get to contribute to something that was important, which is empowering people with software.

At Microsoft there are lots of brilliant ideas but the image is that they all come from the top – I’m afraid that’s not quite right

Effective philanthropy requires a lot of time and creativity – the same kind of focus and skills that building a business requires

The general idea of the rich helping the poor, I think, is important

I’m a geek

I was a kind of hyper-intense person in my twenties and very impatient.

I was a kind of hyper-intense person in my twenties and very impatient.

As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.

The experience of God, or in any case the possibility of experiencing God, is innate.

Beauty is strangely various. There is the beauty of light and joy and strength exulting; but there is also the beauty of shade, of sorrow and sadness, and of humility oppressed.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.

I understood at a very early age that in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and with the spirit of the universe.

I just think cities are unnatural, basically. I know there are people who live happily in them, and I have cities that I love, too. But it's a disaster that we have moved so far from nature.