I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain.

Unformed people delight in the gaudy and in novelty. Cooked people delight in the ordinary.

Life is too long to know C++ well.

Well, take it from an old hand: the only reason it would be easier to program in C is that you can't easily express complex problems in C, so you don't.

Some people are little more than herd animals, flocking together whenever the world becomes uncomfortable … I am not one of those people. If I had a motto, it would probably be Herd thither, me hither.

Suppose we blasted all politicians into space. Would the SETI project find even one of them?

The aspects you are willing to ignore are more important than the aspects you are willing to accept.