Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow (e.g., given a large enough beta-tester and co-developer base, almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix obvious to someone).

Berkeley hackers liked to see themselves as rebels against soulless corporate empires.

The workstation-class machines built by Sun and others opened up new worlds for hackers.

Good programmers know what to write. Great ones know what to rewrite (and reuse)

Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.

If you have the right attitude, interesting problems will find you.

You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion.

Prototype, then polish. Get it working before you optimize it

The easiest programs to use are those which demand the least new learning from the user

When I hear the words "social responsibility," I want to reach for my gun.

When your language is nowhere near Turing-complete, syntactic sugar can be your friend.

The Grateful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesn't pay homage to the God that all the other religions pay homage to.

Never take anything for granted.

To work and suffer is to be at home. All else is scenery.

I like to work around identification for the audience, and when there's a grown-up or a moral figure or something like that, people tend to go there.

My father used to say that if a man fools you once, he's a jerk. If he fools you twice, you're a jerk. Only he didn't use the word "jerk."

There is another side to chivalry. If it dispenses leniency, it may with equal justification invoke control.

I just feel such a connection to the little kids in Naples. I remember being on the street wanting a small piece of candy.

Never make eye contact with anyone while eating a banana

The first novel that I wrote was because I was having very interesting sorts of experiences, for Indians of my generation.

I consider it to be the meaning of my whole life and my obligation to serve my fatherland and our people.