From an operating system research point of view, Unix is if not dead certainly old stuff, and it's clear that people should be looking beyond it.

UNIX is basically a simple operating system, but you have to be a genius to understand the simplicity.

The only way to learn a new programming language is by writing programs in it.

Unix has retarded OS research by 10 years and linux has retarded it by 20.

C was already implemented on several quite different machines and OSs, Unix was already being distributed on the PDP-11, but the portability of the whole system was new

C is quirky, flawed, and an enormous success.

C++ and Java, say, are presumably growing faster than plain C, but I bet C will still be around.

For infrastructure technology, C will be hard to displace.

A language that doesn't have everything is actually easier to program in than some that do

... with proper design, the features come cheaply. This approach is arduous, but continues to succeed.

I'm not a person who particularly had heros when growing up.

No language is rude that can boast polite writers.

It's one thing to see a vision; it's another thing to be seized by a vision.

Learning is experience understood in tranquility.

It is more important to repeat a mantra several times with total absorption than to parrot it for hours on end.

In the history of enterprise, most of the protagonists of major new products and companies began their education

You couldn't tell if she was dressed for an opera or an operation.

I always ask myself why old heavyweights come back, but I plan to stay out of the ring.

Danger is a side effect of what I do, not the reason behind it.

Welcome the present moment as if you had invited it. Why? Because it is all we ever have.

I tell you, if you're in the front row of the parade and you stop walking, pretty soon you're back in the tuba section. And if you want to lead the parade you've got to keep moving.