Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

Younger hackers are hard to classify. They're probably just as diverse as the old hackers are. We're all over the map.

At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.

For me, writing is a love-hate relationship.

Portability should be the default.

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.

Symmetry is overrated. Overrated is symmetry.

The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Over the long term, symbiosis is more useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.

Hubris itself will not let you be an artist.

True greatness is measured by how much freedom you give to others, not by how much you can coerce others to do what you want.

I have become my own version of an optimist. If I can't makeit through one door, I'll go through another door -- or I'llmake a door. Something terrific will come no matter how darkthe present.

The main problem in a person's life is never his suffering

I've discovered I'm a strong and capable person. I can handle almost anything except being alone with this.

There are many mysteries in old age but the greatest, surely, is this: in those adverts for walk-in bathtubs, why doesn't all the water gush out when you get in?

I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.

I am pathetically law-abiding.

A passage is not plain English - still less is it good English - if we are obliged to read it twice to find out what it means.

one is never got out of the cave, one comes out of it.

There is no unique picture of reality.