Being a programmer is the same way. The only way to be a good programmer is to write code. When you realize you haven't been writing much code lately, and it seems like all you do is brag about code you wrote in the past, and people start looking at you funny while you're shooting your mouth off, realize it's because they know. They might not even know they know, but they know. So, yes, doing what you love brings success, and by all means, throw yourself a nice big party, buy yourself a nice car, soak up the adulation of an adoring crowd. Then shut the fuck up and get back to work. -- Sincerity Theory

A person won't become proficient at something until he or she has done it many times. In other words., if you want someone to be really good at building a software system, he or she will have to have built 10 or more systems of that type. -- Philip Greenspun

[How friendly will this machine be?] Well, I don’t think it’s a matter of friendliness, because ultimately if the program is going to accomplish anything of value, it will probably be relatively complex. -- Gary Kildall (inventor of CP/M, one of the first OS for the micro).

The Work Begins Anew, The Hope Rises Again, And The Dream Lives On. -- Ted Kennedy

In OO, it's the data that is the "important" thing: you define the class which contains member data, and only incidentally contains code for manipulating the object. In FP, it's the code that's important: you define a function which contains code for working with the data, and only incidentally define what the data is. -- almkgor, on reddit

Show, don't tell. -- unknown

If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work. ~Thomas J. Watson

Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb

The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. –Ralph Waldo Emerson

Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value. ~Albert Einstein