The manuals we got from IBM would show examples of programs and I knew I could do a heck of a lot better than that. So I thought I might have some talent.

Let us change our traditional attitude to the construction of programs. Instead of imagining that our main task is to instruct a computer what to do, let us concentrate rather on explaining to human beings what we want a computer to do.

The enjoyment of one's tools is an essential ingredient of successful work.

The designer of a new kind of system must participate fully in the implementation.

I define UNIX as 30 definitions of regular expressions living under one roof.

I try to learn certain areas of computer science exhaustively; then I try to digest that knowledge into a form that is accessible to people who don't have time for such study.

The sun comes up just about as often as it goes down, in the long run, but this doesn't make its motion random.