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

To understand a program, you must become both the machine and the program.

FORTRAN is not a flower but a weed – it is hardy, occasionally blooms, and grows in every computer.

Banality soothes our nerves.

In man-machine symbiosis, it is man who must adjust: The machines can’t.

If your computer speaks English, it was probably made in Japan.

“Toward what end, toward what end?”- but do not ask it too often lest you pass up the fun of programming for the constipation of bittersweet philosophy.

Don’t have good ideas if you aren’t willing to be responsible for them.

Optimization hinders evolution.

Is it possible that software is not like anything else.

One man’s constant is another man’s variable.

Learning French is trivial: the word for horse is cheval, and everything else follows in the same way.

There are two ways to write error-free programs; only the third one works.

What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail and learning to be self-critical?

Hardly any sets of 10K words can be adequately described with pictures.

You can measure a programmer’s perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.

It goes against the grain of modern education to teach children to program.

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”.