In fact what I would like to see is thousands of computer scientists let loose to do whatever they want. That's what really advances the field.

Programming is the art of telling another human being what one wants the computer to do.

Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random

Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.

People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.

Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do.

Everyday life is like programming, I guess. If you love something you can put beauty into it.

Programs are meant to be read by humans and only incidentally for computers to execute.

We should forget about small efficiencies, say about 97% of the time: premature optimization is the root of all evil.

People think that computer science is the art of geniuses but the actual reality is the opposite, just many people doing things that build on each other, like a wall of mini stones.

The whole thing that makes a mathematician’s life worthwhile is that he gets the grudging admiration of three or four colleagues.

We shall change all that...because it is possible to change the world, if one is determined enough, and if one sees with sufficient clarity just what has to be changed.

Rich countries want unfettered access to poor countries' markets, which are often heavily protected by tariffs, but they don't want to give up all the protections for their own goods and services.

There is no such thing as Success....That a thing is successful merely means that it is; a millionaire is successful in being a millionaire and a donkey in being a donkey.

I will not say sorry and be pardoned for doing a godly act.

Design that moves others comes from issues that move you.

Many of the racial problems in America are caused by the fact that people are innately tribal, and politicians know how to exploit that biological fact.

My friend Anderson Cooper is the scion of one of America's great shipping and railroad families, the Vanderbilts.

I'm playin' the music I like.

'Green' issues at last are attracting serious attention, owing to critically important links between the environment and the economy, health, and our security.

War is capitalism with the gloves off and many who go to war know it but they go to war because they don't want to be a hero.