Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot. -- Eric S. Raymond

A person won't retain proficiency at a task unless he or she has at one time learned to perform that task very rapidly. Learning research demonstrates that the skills of people who become accurate but not fast deteriorate much sooner than the skills of people who become both accurate and fast. -- Philip Greenspun

There is one meaning [for static in C]: a global variable that is invisible outside the current scope, be it a function or a file. -- Paolo Bonzini

There really is no learning without doing. -- Roger Schank, Engines for Education

Opportunities that present themselves to you are the consequence -- at least partially -- of being in the right place at the right time. They tend to present themselves when you're not expecting it -- and often when you are engaged in other activities that would seem to preclude you from pursuing them. And they come and go quickly -- if you don't jump all over an opportunity, someone else generally will and it will vanish. -- Marc Andreessen (http://blog.pmarca.com/)

A society that puts equality -- in the sense of equality of outcome -- ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests. -- Milton Friedman (Thomas Sowell: A Conflict of Visions, p130)

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. ~Pablo Picasso

Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. –Grandma Moses

Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see. –Confucius

We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. –Marie Curie