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

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

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.

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.

Wow, ” she said. “Do you realise how wonderful you sound?”“Yes, I do, ” he said with a firm nod. “And I think I’m underappreciated.

and then the chosen lie would pass into the permanent records and become truth

Freedom is the decision to live and die, doing what you love.

Red was ruby, green was fluorescent, yellow was simply incandescent. Color was life. Color was everything.Color, you see, was the universal sign of magic.

Whenever things sound easy, it turns out there's one part you didn't hear.

The ancients had a term in the mystical tradition called the Akashic Records, which was suggestive that nature didn't lose it's experience, that the information accumulated was available forever.

If one is a greyhound, why try to look like a Pekingese?

a kite is a victim you are sure of. you love it because it pulls.

When chopping onions, just chop onions.

He thought there was no hope for him. Me? I can't imagine a world without hope.