The central problem of C and C++ is that they require programmers to do their own memory management

Berkeley hackers liked to see themselves as rebels against soulless corporate empires.

The workstation-class machines built by Sun and others opened up new worlds for hackers.

Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)

Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow (e.g., given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone).

If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.

You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion.

Prototype, then polish. Get it working before you optimize it

The easiest programs to use are those which demand the least new learning from the user

When I hear the words "social responsibility," I want to reach for my gun.

You know you're doing what you love when Sunday nights feel the same as Friday nights....

It is one of the poignant anxieties of the thinker that he sees the shadow resting on the human soul, and that he gropes in darkness without being able to awake that slumbering Progress.

I can run sub-10 any time but I'm just not ready.

If anyone asks me about the George Martin years I usually say I group all of that stuff together as the single greatest experience but I wasn't scared I was just really looking forward to it.

Nations, like men, have their infancy.

Thank God for wisecracks.

Bodies, again, Are partly primal germs of things, and partly Unions deriving from the primal germs.

The only true animal is a cat, and the only true cat is a gray cat.

Jaws, first time I saw it, I forgot I was in it. True. Totally forgot, and got as scared as everybody else, and it's a great movie.

You don't know how to lie. If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere.