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

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.

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 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.

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.

We can believe things that are true, and we can believe things that are not true. Which is more important---what is true, or what we believe?

I’d rather not know what lies ahead because I like the dark. I like thinking there is something good in the places I can’t see. And that’s not ignorance. That’s just hope.

The reason we're here today is because years ago God broke Reggie Joiner's heart over the state of children.

American Idol' is a $900 million-a-year corporation. When you are dealing with that, you can't come off with lies - it's either the truth or nothing.

Some people are larger than life. Hitler is larger than death.

If you focus on goals, you may hit goals - but that doesn't guarantee growth. If you focus on growth, you will grow and always hit goals.

Once you kill a cow, you gotta make a burger

Good evening, daddy! Ain't you heard The boogie-woogie rumble Of a dream deferred? Trilling the treble And twining the bass Into midnight ruffles Of cat-gut lace.

To start writing about your life is, from one standpoint, to stop living it. You must avoid adventures today so as to make time for registering those of yesterday.

A great actor is simply just seeing him or herself, and reacting to what exists around them.