Software engineering is not about right and wrong but only better and worse

The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.

We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins

To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accomodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable.

But you can't stop knowing something, can you?

I've always written. I'm from an older generation of programmers [who] did not come out of engineering. [A]ll sorts of people were drawn in from the social sciences and humanities.

I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that technology, in and of itself, was a savior. Like all human-created 'progress, ' computers are problematic, giving and taking away.

People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true.

Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a system.

Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity.

The change of language is a change in reality.

Virtually all organisations known to you work largely by means of your greed. They attract you because... they appeal to your greed.

Regardless of where I have been, I choose to step into my loving.

Joy, joy, joy!Past ages crowd on thee, but each one remembers, And the future is dark, and the present is spread, Like a pillow of thorns for thy slumberless head.

A politician never forgets the precarious nature of elective life. We have never established a practice of tenure in public office.

I do keep getting these bad girl roles. The funny thing is that, honestly, I don't think I'm believable as these aristocratic mean girls. But I do love playing them.

I always have problems with seeing how our new stuff relates to our old stuff - I'm better at seeing long lines in other people's music than in my own.

By and large, talent is in such short supply that mediocrity can be taken for brilliance rather more than genius can go undiscovered.

It's nice to have material things but they're very superficial aren't they?

Heaven is always and forever around us and no soul remembered is ever really gone.