"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled."

"I see no progress in this industry. These clocks are no faster than the ones they made a hundred years ago."

"You can’t have great software without a great team, and most software teams behave like dysfunctional families."

"A hacker on a roll may be able to produce–in a period of a few months–something that a small development group (say, 7-8 people) would have a hard time getting together over a year. IBM used to report that…"

"Once you understand how to write a program get someone else to write it."

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC. As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."

"A distributed system is one in which the failure of a computer you didn't even know existed can render your own computer unusable."

"You will not even have enough time to go online and download all the patches to your computer before it is infected."

"Good code is its own best documentation."

"Everything should be built top-down, except the first time."

"The computing field is always in need of new cliches."

"You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN."

"Our mission is to organize the world's information. Clearly, the more information we have when we do a search, the better it's going to work."

"The last good thing written in C++ was the Pachelbel Canon."

"That’s the thing about people who think they hate computers. What they really hate is lousy programmers."

"Software is under a constant tension. Being symbolic it is arbitrarily perfectible; but also it is arbitrarily changeable."

"If two people write exactly the same program, each should be put into microcode and then they certainly won't be the same."

"That’s what’s cool about working with computers. They don’t argue, they remember everything, and they don’t drink all your beer."

"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes."

"Getting Information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant."

"Saying your OS is the best in the world 'cause more people use it is like saying McDonalds makes the best food in the world."

"I'm a great believer in new technology and I think new technology is very scary for newspaper companies."

"We are on the verge: Today our program proved Fermat's next-to-last theorem."

"Hardware: where the people in your company's software section will tell you the problem is. Software: where the people in your company's hardware section will tell you the problem is."

"Difference between a virus and windows ? Viruses rarely fail."

"Web users ultimately want to get at data quickly and easily. They don't care as much about attractive sites and pretty design."

"If a listener nods his head when you're explaining your program, wake him up."

"But they are useless. They can only give you answers."

"What the country needs are a few labor-making inventions."

"Today's meters are little computers."

"True innovation often comes from the small startup who is lean enough to launch a market but lacks the heft to own it."

"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."

"In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages."

"[Smart] is an elusive concept. There's a certain sharpness, an ability to absorb new facts. To ask an insightful question. To relate to domains that may not seem connected at first. A certain creativity that allows people to be effective."

"Many people see technology as the problem behind the so-called digital divide. Others see it as the solution. Technology is neither. It must operate in conjunction with business, economic, political and social system."

"We've arranged a civilization in which most crucial elements profoundly depend on science and technology."

"Overall, OS/2's problems fall into two categories: IBM and Microsoft."

"The string is a stark data structure and everywhere it is passed there is much duplication of process. It is a perfect vehicle for hiding information."

"We have technology, finally, that for the first time in human history allows people to really maintain rich connections with much larger numbers of people."

"This is a highly reliable power source. Being a large credit card processor, doing $6 million an hour in transactions, our computers have to work."

"Though the Chinese should adore APL, it's FORTRAN they put their money on."

"There's a lot of Google fascination out there and we share it, and we're going to compete, we're going to compete very, very hard."

"When we write programs that "learn", it turns out that we do and they don't."

"Technology is so much fun but we can drown in our technology. The fog of information can drive out knowledge."

"It is the user who should parameterize procedures, not their creators."

"I have gotten everything from a one-page letter written in pencil to a 50-page computer generated masterpiece."

"Every program has (at least) two purposes: the one for which it was written, and another for which it wasn't."

"Customers are still setting the technology agenda. Not just you, our customers, but your customers as well. What more and more are telling you is what kind of services they need, and how and when they want those services delivered…"