Product procedure...must securely protect the crown jewels, but, equally important, it must eschew building high fences around the garbage cans.

Successful software always gets changed.

Mediocre design provably wastes the world's resources, corrupts the environment, affects international competitiveness. Design is important.

A scientist builds in order to learn; an engineer learns in order to build.

You can learn more from failure than success. In failure you're forced to find out what part did not work. But in success you can believe everything you did was great, when in fact some parts may not have worked at all. Failure forces you to face reality.

A computer program is a message from a man to a machine. The rigidly marshaled syntax and the scrupulous definitions all exist to make intention clear to the dumb engine.

...when fits of creativity run strong, more than one programmer or writer has been known to abandon the desktop for the more spacious floor.