To be a programmer is to develop a carefully managed relationship with error. There's no getting around it. You either make your accomodations with failure, or the work will become intolerable.

The messiness cannot go into the program; it piles up around the programmer.

We build our computer (systems) the way we build our cities: over time, without a plan, on top of ruins

Software engineering is not about right and wrong but only better and worse

But you can't stop knowing something, can you?

I've always written. I'm from an older generation of programmers [who] did not come out of engineering. [A]ll sorts of people were drawn in from the social sciences and humanities.

I don't know where anyone ever got the idea that technology, in and of itself, was a savior. Like all human-created 'progress, ' computers are problematic, giving and taking away.

People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true.

Introduced in the 1960s, multitasking is an engineering strategy for making computers more efficient. Human beings are the slowest elements in a system.

Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity.

As much as I cared about him, I wasn’t a slave to fate. I could choose to ignore my feelings, strong as they were. It would be painful, but no more so than letting myself pine for my friend.

History immortalises both the names of the greats and the tyrants without making a distinction between them.

Other people's interruptions of your work are relatively insignificant compared with the countless times you interrupt yourself.

We all have strengths, weaknesses and blind spots. In fact, an average person has 3.4 blind spots.

Seeing and admitting the truth about ourselves, about our role in creating our own problems, and about how we relate to others is vital for healing.

Drama is always conflict. Conflict either comes from within or without. The thing that makes a show different is the conflict manifests itself both internally and externally.

Follow no path. Make your own.

Works of genius are the first things in the world.

Childhood constitutes the most important element in an adult's life, for it is in his early years that a man is made.

I am a little bit of a foul mouth and I just like to give it back to people.