We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.

Younger hackers are hard to classify. They're probably just as diverse as the old hackers are. We're all over the map.

At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.

Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

For me, writing is a love-hate relationship.

Portability should be the default.

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.

Symmetry is overrated. Overrated is symmetry.

The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Over the long term, symbiosis is more useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.

Hubris itself will not let you be an artist.

In wartime people took action because of what they believed in. In peacetime people were driven by their private concerns.

Reality tastes like ashes

My rackets are run on strictly American lines and they're going to stay that way.

The greatest evils in the world will not be carried out by men with guns, but by men in suits sitting behind desks

Always remember: The thieves of Peace are thieves in an empty house because only imagination suffers. You are Peace, that which remains Untouched.

Take care, you who wish / to deal with names / for love. Behind their sweetness / and wrath, nothing endures. / Nothing but wounds and kisses.

When chess masters err, ordinary wood pushers tend to derive a measure of satisfaction, if not actual glee.

Grief changes shape, but it never ends. People have a misconception that you can deal with it and say, 'It's gone, and I'm better.' They're wrong.

The morose one refuses to smile even when he has just had his teeth cleaned.

The function of the wing is to take what is heavy and raise it up in the region above.