Constructing a social system that tends to those who agree with it is a piece of cake compared to constructing one that makes those who disagree with it want to obey its principles.

It's not that Perl programmers are idiots, it's that the language rewards idiotic behavior in a way that no other language or tool has ever done.

Norway did not even have a revolution at the time the rest of Europe was busy figuring out human rights and stuff, because we were busy fighting over how to spell it.

We have no mom-and-pop oil rigs in Norway.

Part of any serious QA is removing Perl code the same way you go over a dilapidated building you inherit to remove chewing gum and duct tape and fix whatever was kept together for real.

it's just that in C++ and the like, you don't trust anybody, and in CLOS you basically trust everybody. The practical result is that thieves and bums use C++ and nice people use CLOS.

I guess there are some things that are so gross you just have to forget, or it'll destroy something within you. Perl is the first such thing I have known.

That's why the smartest companies use Common Lisp, but lie about it so all their competitors think Lisp is slow and C++ is fast.

Life is hard, and then you die.

Well, take it from an old hand: the only reason it would be easier to program in C is that you can't easily express complex problems in C, so you don't.

Unformed people delight in the gaudy and in novelty. Cooked people delight in the ordinary.

Believe you can and you're halfway there.

He’s here. I feel him. His body is touching mine and it’s very real. We’re holding each other

It is hard to focus on going forwards when you are looking backwards.

Family life got better and we got our car back - as soon as we put "I love Mom" on the license plate.

Never do anything complicated when something simple will serve as well. It's one of the most important secrets of living.

As History stands, it is a sort of Chinese Play, without end and without lesson.

I should be a postage stamp, because that's the only way I'll ever get licked. I'm beautiful. I'm fast. I'm so mean I make medicine sick. I can't possibly be beat.

Everything I do is blown out of proportion. It really hurts my feelings.

The mind has its illusions as the sense of sight; and in the same manner that the sense of feeling corrects the latter, reflection and calculation correct the former.

I don't really expect much from my life. So when I heard my films are premiering in film festival circuits I was glad of course but I thought it was lucky accident.