You know, I've got my hands in 30 or 40 different pots simultaneously and so I have a little bit of all of that where I work.

Younger hackers are hard to classify. They're probably just as diverse as the old hackers are. We're all over the map.

At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.

Most of you are familiar with the virtues of a programmer. There are three, of course: laziness, impatience, and hubris.

For me, writing is a love-hate relationship.

Portability should be the default.

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.

Symmetry is overrated. Overrated is symmetry.

The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Over the long term, symbiosis is more useful than parasitism. More fun, too. Ask any mitochondria.

Hubris itself will not let you be an artist.

She lifted her chin and glared at him. “If you had but asked, I would’ve informed you that I do not attend masquerades.” “That is precisely why I didn’t ask.

The desire for perfect release and the real-world impossibility of perfect, whenever-you-want-it release had together produced a tension they could no longer stand.

It's the stories that make my heart beat faster ...those are the ones to write about

There is something in us, as storytellers and as listeners to stories, that demands the redemptive act, that demands that what falls at least be offered the chance to be restored.

Often we come home from a sharing session with a feeling that something precious has been taken away from us or that holy ground has been trodden upon.

I don't do normal. I have a reputation to uphold. (Thwonk)

With a few exceptions people don't want money. They want luxury and they want love and they want admiration.

The door handle is the handshake of the building.

When married people don't get on they can separate, but if they're not married it's impossible. It's a tie that only death can sever.

Postmodernism does not facilitate better art. It rationalizes inferior art by wrapping it in words - a suit of armor with nobody inside.