The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements.

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

Do what you think is interesting, do something that you think is fun and worthwhile, because otherwise you won't do it well anyway.

Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming.

90% of the functionality delivered now is better than 100% delivered never.

C is a razor-sharp tool, with which one can create an elegant and efficient program or a bloody mess.

Don't document bad code - rewrite it.

... it is a fundamental principle of testing that you must know in advance the answer each test case is supposed to produce. If you don't, you are not testing; you are experimenting.

Believe the terrain, not the map

Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs.

If you had done something twice, you are likely to do it again.

Have you become a song in someone's heart?

I am isolated. I sit in a glass ball, I see people through a glass wall. I scream, but they do not hear me.- Ellen West

Never categorize yourself, society does that to you, don't do it to yourself.

Active imagination requires a state of reverie, half-way between sleep and waking.

You have a small period of time when you can perfect your career and become good at it. A lot of guys get distracted, which only hurts them. You must stay focused and work very hard at boxing.

Becoming a father made me much more interested in the parent character in my novels. I've never found parents that interesting.

It was a Republican, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who first protected the Arctic Refuge to balance the oil development at Prudhoe Bay with responsible conservation.

Maybe I think too much.

I have only one thing to say to the tax increasers: Go ahead, make my day.

Story is honorable and trustworthy; plot is shifty, and best kept under house arrest.