Languages shape the way we think, or don't.

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.

We don’t survive to live. We live to survive.

Life is a mess. And theology must be lived out in the midst of that mess.

Shh, ” Cobweb said with a well-time jab of the elbow, “we might be able to get some dignity out of this, if we play our cards right.

There aren't that many people walking about who are a total class stereotype.

Adults don't get nearly the attention and support the kids do, maybe because they're not as cute or because people forget that autism is lifelong. But it is.

Like restless birds, the breath of coming rain Creeps, lilac-laden, up the village street

The extra curricular activity in which I was most engaged - debating - helped shape my interests in public policy.

The collegiate idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.

If I had spent a quarter of the time that I spent manipulating my sexuality in front of a piano instead, I would be the most gifted piano player of my lifetime.