"A program is never less than 90% complete, and never more than 95% complete." --Terry Baker

"The key to performance is elegance, not battalions of special cases." --Jon Bentley and Doug McIlroy

"You needed a cool name to put on a T-shirt, and you needed a T-shirt to give to people. It was part of getting people excited enough to work 70 hours a week." --Erich Ringewald of Apple

"A C program is like a fast dance on a newly waxed dance floor by people carrying razors." --Waldi Ravens

There is no programming language, no matter how structured, that will prevent programmers from making bad programs. --Larry Flon

"Their rumpled clothes, their unwashed and unshaven faces, and their uncombed hair all testify that they are oblivious to their bodies and to the world in which they move. These are computer bums, compulsive programmers." --Joseph Weizenbaum

"When an Indian shakes his head at your software design, don't take it personally; he is probably agreeing with you!" --Elijah Manor

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new." --Steve Jobs

"The computer programmer is a creator of universes for which he alone is responsible. Universes of virtually unlimited complexity can be created in the form of computer programs." --Joseph Weizenbaum

"You bet I keep my collections well encapsulated!" --Head First Design Patterns

"The most effective debugging tool is still careful thought, coupled with judiciously placed print statements." --Brian W. Kernighan

Certain Things

"Three things are certain: Death, taxes, and lost data. Guess which has occurred..." --Unknown

"No matter what the problem is, it's always a people problem." --Gerald M. Weinberg

"Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement." --Frederick P. Brooks

"SQL, Lisp, and Haskell are the only programming languages that I've seen where one spends more time thinking than typing." --Philip Greenspun

"A known bug is better than an unknown feature." --Manoj Sati