There are two ways of constructing a software design: One way is to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies, and the other way is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious deficiencies. The first method is far more difficult.

An ultimate joint challenge for the biological and the computational sciences is the understanding of the mechanisms of the human brain, and its relationship with the human mind.

I was eventually persuaded of the need to design programming notations so as to maximize the number of errors which cannot be made, or if made, can be reliably detected at compile time.

The price of reliability is the pursuit of the utmost simplicity. It is a price which the very rich may find hard to pay.

Some problems are better evaded than solved.

Here is a language so far ahead of its time, that it was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on nearly all its successors.

I don't know what the language of the year 2000 will look like, but I know it will be called Fortran.