(Reuters) - Steve Jobs, in pain and too weak to climb stairs a few weeks before his death, wanted his children to understand why he wasn't always there for them, according to the author of his highly anticipated biography.

"I wanted my kids to know me," Jobs was quoted as saying by Pulitzer Prize nominee Walter Isaacson, when he asked the Apple Inc co-founder why he authorized a tell-all biography after living a private, almost ascetic life.

"I wasn't always there for them, and I wanted them to know why and to understand what I did," Jobs told Isaacson in their final interview at Jobs' home in Palo Alto, California.

Isaacson said he visited Jobs for the last time a few weeks ago and found him curled up in some pain in a downstairs bedroom. Jobs had moved there because he was too weak to go up and down stairs, "but his mind was still sharp and his humor vibrant," Isaacson wrote in an essay on Time.com that will be published in the magazine's October 17 edition.

Jobs died on Wednesday at the age of 56 after a long battle with a rare form of pancreatic cancer.
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/07/us-apple-jobs-idUSTRE79472K20111007

By Alistair Barr and Poornima Gupta
CUPERTINO, Calif./SAN FRANCISCO | Thu Oct 6, 2011 8:01pm EDT
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