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

Any sufficiently complicated C or Fortran program contains an ad hoc, informally specified, bug-ridden, slow implementation of half of Common Lisp. -- Philip Greenspun (Greenspun's Tenth Rule)

Every man prefers belief to the exercise of judgment. -- Seneca

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. -- E. W. Dijkstra

Side projects are less masturbatory than reading RSS, often more useful than MobileMe, more educational than the comments on Reddit, and usually more fun than listening to keynotes. -- Chris Wanstrath

[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).

Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. –Albert Einstein

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank

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

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice Walker