Surprise is the beginning of wisdom.

The "paperless office" is a bad idea because paper is one of the most useful and valuable media ever invented. "On paper" is a good place for information you want to use; a bad place for information you want to store.

Computers make people stupid.

For years, computer scientists were treating operating systems design as sort of an open-reserch issue, when the field's direction had been decided by commercial operations. Computer science has become completely cut off from reality.

The first step is always to succeed in becoming surprised - to notice that there is something funny going on.

The best computer scientists are...technologists who crave beauty.

While we bemoan the decline of literacy, computers discount words in favor of pictures and pictures in favor of video. While we fret about the decreasing cogency of public debate, computers dismiss linear argument and promote fast, shallow romps across the information landscape. While we worry about basic skills, we allow into the classroom software that will do a student's arithmetic or correct his spelling.