People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on eachother, like a wall of mini stones.

Programming is the art of telling another human being what one wants the computer to do.

Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random

Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.

People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.

Programs are meant to be read by humans and only incidentally for computers to execute.

We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.

People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.

The whole thing that makes a mathematician’s life worthwhile is that he gets the grudging admiration of three or four colleagues.

Knowledge is the key driver of the progress of civilization.

What surprises me is when people give me their mobile number. The other day, someone on a bus asked if I swear. I said I try not to, but of course I'm just a normal person.

Making things difficult for the reader is less an attack on the reader than it is on the age and its facile knowledge-market.

I've made a connection with the television audience by being a proud Latino man. I am passionate for what I do, courageous in the face of peril, honest and straightforward.

It is precisely the despair of our times that convinces me that a renaissance is right around the corner.

I teach a course in screenwriting at Columbia, but I've never taken a course and I've never read a book about it!

A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright.

I was at Barcelona for many years where I won a lot of things and achieved a lot of dreams. For these reasons it holds a special place in my life.

The most fundamental attack on freedom is the attack on critical thinking skills.

Sometimes people fail to see that individual decisions have universal consequences.