Modern programs must handle Unicode —Python has excellent support for Unicode, and will keep getting better.

Python is an experiment in how much freedom programmers need. Too much freedom and nobody can read another's code; too little and expressiveness is endangered.

If you decide to design your own language, there are thousands of sort of amateur language designer pitfalls.

Don't you hate code that's not properly indented? Making it [indenting] part of the syntax guarantees that all code is properly indented.

I have this hope that there is a better way. Higher-level tools that actually let you see the structure of the software more clearly will be of tremendous value.

My own perception of that is somewhat colored by where people ask my advice, which is still, of course, about changes to Python internals or at least standard libraries.

Mark Hammond is working in this area, with Windows Scripting Host. It is definitely an area where Python fits almost perfectly. That's quite independent from Java, actually.

They sat in silence on the windowsill, their hands locked across the distance between them.

Don’t be fooled. The battle between Iran and ISIS doesn’t turn Iran into a friend of America.

Women are more focused on the development of the quality of life in their countries. They are more involved in social and family policies, childcare, and poverty reduction.

I've always said there are four words that every child in the world knows, and those are, "Tell me a story,." Even the people who wrote the Bible knew that. They told stories, like the story of Noah.

Occasionally a student writer comes up with something really beautiful and moving, and you won't know for years if it was an accident or the first burst of something wonderful.

Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?

There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy.

I've always felt you don't have to be completely detached, emotionally uninvolved to make precise observations. There's nothing wrong with feeling great empathy for your subjects.

The desire to break the silence with constant human noise is, I believe, precisely an avoidance of the sacred terror of that divine encounter.

When the belly is empty, the body becomes spirit; and when it is full, the spirit becomes body.