Show me your flowcharts and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowcharts; they'll be obvious.

The Waterfall Model is wrong and harmful; we must outgrow it.

How does a project get to be a year behind schedule? One day at a time.

Nine people can't make a baby in a month.

The fundamental problem with program maintenance is that fixing a defect has a substantial (20-50 percent) chance of introducing another. So the whole process is two steps forward and one step back.

System debugging has always been a graveyard-shift occupation, like astronomy.

A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build.

The hardest single part of building a software system is deciding precisely what to build.

Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later

System debugging, like astronomy, has always been done chiefly at night.

The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.

Imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.

But there are times, " said Charlotte, "when it is necessary and an act of friendship to write nothing rather than not to write.

The most beautiful sunset is the one which suddenly appears in front of you while you are walking pensively!

Wizards and computers get along about as well as flamethrowers and libraries.

Be but faithful, that is all; Go right on, and close behind thee There shall follow still and find thee Help, sure help.

I make shoes for white suburban kids, not the poor black kids. That would be like opening a restaurant for people without stomachs.

When you feel anger arising, remember to return to your breathing and follow it. The other person may see that you are practicing, and she may even apologize.

Even when you feel you've reached the end or edge of life, hold on. Life itself will ultimately take care of you.

Failure is a teacher; a harsh one, but the best.

I certainly don't sit around in the morning making pancakes listening to Whitehouse or anything.