Much of the excitement we get out of our work is that we don't really know what we are doing.

Don't blame me for the fact that competent programming, as I view it as an intellectual possibility, will be too difficult for the average programmer, you must not fall into the trap of rejecting a surgical technique because it is beyond the capabilities of the barber in his shop around the corner.

Why has elegance found so little following? That is the reality of it. Elegance has the disadvantage, if that's what it is, that hard work is needed to achieve it and a good education to appreciate it.

If we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as "lines produced" but as "lines spent."

Brainpower is by far our scarcest resource.

The tools we use have a profound and devious influence on our thinking habits, and therefore on our thinking abilities.

The question of whether computers can think is like the question of whether submarines can swim.