I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that technology, in and of itself, was a savior. Like all human-created 'progress, ' computers are problematic, giving and taking away.

The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.

We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins

To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accomodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable.

Software engineering is not about right and wrong but only better and worse

But you can't stop knowing something, can you?

I've always written. I'm from an older generation of programmers [who] did not come out of engineering. [A]ll sorts of people were drawn in from the social sciences and humanities.

People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true.

Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a system.

Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity.

What will survive of us is love.

How is it that mankind can engineer condoms to prevent pregnancy and STDs and not be able to invent some sort of emotional safeguard? Is it even possible to abstain from falling in love?

Honey, I work for money not love.

log log log x goes to infinity with great dignity.

I'm not myself religious but have no wish to insult or denigrate those who are.

The real danger with debt is what happens if lots of people decide, or are forced, to pay it off at the same time.

What such a man needs is not courage but nerve control, cool headedness. This he can get only by practice.

Words are to be taken seriously. I try to take seriously acts of language. Words set things in motion. I've seen them doing it. Words set up atmospheres, electrical fields, charges.

You put Hillary Clinton up against Donald Trump, I'm scared of the choice no matter what you do.