I view the JVM as just another architecture that Perl ought to be ported to. (That, and the Underwood typewriter...)

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're the most beautiful and delightful moon in my sky.

Let us understand what our own selfish genes are up to because we may then at least have the chance to upset their designs.

For me beauty is valued more than anything - the beauty that is manifest in a curved line or in an act of creativity.

I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon.

If I'm speaking it means that in one way or another when I say, "I'm cold" it belongs to me: I'm cold. But just by saying this it becomes general.

When we started I wasn't the singer. I was the drunk rhythm guitarist who wrote all these weird songs.

A man full of hope will be full of action.

I think having a child can really change you if you're open to it.

Economics is sometimes associated with the study and defense of selfishness and material inequality, but it has an egalitarian and civil libertarian core that should be celebrated.