“Every reader should ask himself periodically.”

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.

Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it.

When someone says, “I want a programming language in which I need only say what I want done,” give him a lollipop.

C programmers never die. They are just cast into void.

Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.

It is better to have 100 functions operate on one data structure than to have 10 functions operate on 10 data structures.

We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful, error-free perfect use of these machines.

In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages.

There is no such thing as a free variable.

Some programming languages manage to absorb change, but withstand progress.

You’ve solved the wrong problem. Work hard to improve.

It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.

In software systems it is often the early bird that makes the worm.