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.

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.

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.

Microsoft is not the answer. Microsoft is the question. NO is the answer.

What branch does not have its leaves and which twig will not have its flowers?

Outside our small safe place flies mystery.

August in Mississippi is different from July. As to heat, it is not a question of degree but of kind. July heat is furious, but in August the heat has killed even itself and lies dead over us.

If people are suffering then they must look within themselves. ... Happiness is not something ready-made [Buddha] can give you. It comes from your own actions.

When we love the planet, we love ourselves, and when we love ourselves, we love the planet.

The highest thinkers of the ages, the seers of the tribes and the nations, have been optimists.

I want you to see that the person I glimpsed running beside the camel, running to save my life, is the person you can choose to be.

I'm looking for a perfume to overpower men - I'm sick of karate.

As secretary of state you can go out in a helmet if you want to. Even in Switzerland in front of reporters.

Nothing had excited me-the huge cars, the entourages, the bodyguards, the policeman jumping to attention, all meant nothing to me ... till I came to the old man's office. (On becoming prime minister)