Our expectations for a technology rise with its advancement.

The most amazing achievement of the computer software industry is its continuing cancellation of the steady and staggering gains made by the computer hardware industry.

No one wants to learn from mistakes, but we cannot learn enough from successes to go beyond the state of the art.

Engineering is achieving function while avoiding failure.

Failure is Central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation.

Design is nothing if not decision making.

Form follows failure.

The bookshelf, like the book, has become an integral part of civilization as we know it, its presence in a home practically defining what it means to be civilized, educated, and refined.

All conventional wisdom has an element of truth to it, but good design requires more than an element of truth - it requires an ensemble of correct assumptions and valid calculations.

Any design, whether its for a ship or an airplane, must be done in anticipation of potential failures.

Failure is central to engineering. Every single calculation that an engineer makes is a failure calculation. Successful engineering is all about understanding how things break or fail.

I'm not sure how much easier it is for a mother to balance her life now - have we simply swapped one set of restrictions for another?

Maybe we're standing like coins on the edge?"Allie considered this. "Meaning?""Meaning, we might be able to shake things up a little, and find a way to come up heads.""Or tails, " suggested

A rumbling volcano is like a pimple.You know that they're both going to explode, but you just don't know when.

Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn't filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.

People seem to want to read more nonfiction than fiction.

I'm not a pretty goalie and I don't ever want to be called one, to tell you the truth.

American boys should not be seen dying on the nightly news. Wars should be over in three days or less, or before Congress invokes the War Powers Resolution.

I'm one of these children who grew up at the knee of my grandmother and her elder sister, listening to very old people talk about their memories.

Gluttony is not a secret vice.

Yeah, I treat all my heroines like children now. I pick them up, I cuddle them, I call them baby.