Sufficiently advanced political correctness is indistinguishable from sarcasm.

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.

When I write, I see the character inside out, not outside in.

They’re so brave, " she said. "They’re all dead." "Only a coward would think of that, " she said scornfully.

Sometimes, you know, bad is good.

... No, the office is one thing, and private life is another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me.

If I believed everything everyone had ever told me about my family I'd be a sight more miserable than I am now

A lot of the songs I've recorded are songs I write.

One of the crazy things about our job is that we get taught these insane skills that we could never use in real life.

I remember things that happened sixty years ago, but if you ask me where I left my car keys five minutes ago, that's sometimes a problem.

Cultural standards evolve. The meaning of the public interest also, of course, evolves.