As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be visually distinct.

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.

You cannot write if you are not angry

Reading Encyclopaedia Britannica is like channel surfing on a very highbrow cable system.

Be so busy competing with your old self until you start to see no reason to ever compete with others.

I like the color red because it's a fire. And I see myself as always being on fire.

Learned helplessness is the giving-up reaction, the quitting response that follows from the belief that whatever you do doesn't matter.

One of the reasons some people get so angry with me is because I have the space now that a lot of others who think like me don't.

I thought, I loved Batman, I loved Spider-Man, I love all these characters, but Catwoman is really different from any other one.

I was born singing. Most babies cry, I sang an aria.

We have reduced sales tax on food. Now we want it eliminated.

Dedication to goodness-dedication in response to an inner moral mandate rather than external restraint-was both the antidote to the pain and the source of great happiness.