"As Will Rogers would have said, "There is no such thing as a free variable.""

"It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them."

"We are Microsoft. Resistance Is Futile. You Will Be Assimilated."

"Computers are like air conditioners: they stop working when you open windows."

"Pentiums melt in your PC, not in your hand."

"Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don't add up."

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

"The perfect computer has been developed. You just feed in your problems and they never come out again."

"They have computers, and they may have other weapons of mass destruction."

"I also introduce skills like using a hula hoop or jumping rope. I think many kids this age need a break from the computer or video games to learn these very important physical skills."

"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…"

"Programmers are in a race with the Universe to create bigger and better idiot-proof programs, while the Universe is trying to create bigger and better idiots. So far the Universe is winning."

"Giving up on assembly language was the apple in our Garden of Eden: Languages whose use squanders machine cycles are sinful. The LISP machine now permits LISP programmers to abandon bra and fig-leaf."

"Real programmers can write assembly code in any language."

"I hope that the internet will get to become ubiquitous and affordable, and if that's achieved, I think it'll be a big part of people's lives - for the better."

"Technology is always evolving, and companies.. not just search companies.. can't be afraid to take advantage of change."

"A good system can't have a weak command language."

"The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency."

"Programming is like sex: one mistake and you’re providing support for a lifetime."

"To iterate is human, to recurse divine."

"It's hard for us in our stores to be a leader in technology."

"Microsoft has a new version out, Windows XP, which according to everybody is the ‘most reliable Windows ever.‘ To me, this is like saying that asparagus is ‘the most articulate vegetable ever."

"A world technology means either a world government or world suicide."

"Things should be made as simple as possible, but not any simpler."

"Almost everybody today believes that nothing in economic history has ever moved as fast as, or had a greater impact than, the Information Revolution. But the Industrial Revolution moved at least as fast in the same time span, and had…"

"An adequate bootstrap is a contradiction in terms."

"Users truly don’t know what they want in a program until they use it."

"I think that it's always possible to have a great company if you have great ideas. I will say that since the web has become more commercialized, it also takes some good financial resources to build a great business, but…"

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

"Computers are like bikinis. They save people a lot of guesswork."

"The interesting thing is when we design and architect a server, we don't design it for Windows or Linux, we design it for both. We don't really care, as long as we're selling the one the customer wants."

"MS-DOS isn't dead, it just smells that way."

"I'm not anti-social; I'm just not user friendly."

"It has been said that the great scientific disciplines are examples of giants standing on the shoulders of other giants. It has also been said that the software industry is an example of midgets standing on the toes of…"

"Simplicity does not precede complexity, but follows it."

"We are very much believers that the web is an open environment, and we need to make sure that people can find all kinds of different stuff through Yahoo!, and not necessarily keeping people within Yahoo!"

"Only ten percent of the code in any given program will ever execute."

"Inside every small program is a large program struggling to get out."

"The idea is that instead of going to an online retail site ... and buying a physical CD and having it shipped to you, you actually can buy the song and download the song to your computer hard drive."

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."

"If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into committees. That'll do them in."

"Technology makes it possible for people to gain control over everything, except over technology."

"Microsoft is now talking about the digital nervous system... I guess I would be nervous if my system was built on their technology too."

"As soon as we started programming, we found to our surprise that it wasn’t as easy to get programs right as we had thought. Debugging had to be discovered. I can remember the exact instant when I realized…"

"I'm struck by the insidious, computer-driven tendency to take things out of the domain of muscular activity and put them into the domain of mental activity."

"We really care about our brand. We really want it to stand for high quality. We want people to be excited about it, for it to be fun."

"Technology makes the world a new place."

"The demand for digital textbooks has increased since its introduction to the marketplace. As students become more familiar with them and computers get faster, larger and more portable, this product will gain in popularity."