“I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing.”

Often it is the means that justify the ends: goals advance technique and technique survives even when goal structures crumble.

A language that doesn’t affect the way you think about programming is not worth knowing.

Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it.

We toast the Lisp programmer who pens his thoughts within nests of parentheses.

I think it is inevitable that people program poorly.

You think you KNOW when you learn.

Adapting old programs to fit new machines usually means adapting new machines to behave like old ones.

Are more sure when you can write, even more when you can teach, but certain when you can program.

A LISP programmer knows the value of everything, but the cost of nothing.

Computer Science is embarrassed by the computer.

If you have a procedure with 10 parameters, you probably missed some.

A year spent in artificial intelligence is enough to make one believe in God.

Motto for a research laboratory: what we work on today, others will first think of tomorrow.

The best book on programming for the layman is Alice in Wonderland, but that’s because it’s the best book on anything for the layman.

Everything should be built top-down, except the first time.

A picture is worth 10K words – but only those to describe the picture.

In computing, the mean time to failure keeps getting shorter.

Because of its vitality, the computing field is always in desperate need of new cliches.

Java is the most distressing thing to hit computing since MS-DOS.

In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word “frustration”.