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)

What do Americans look for in a car? I've heard many answers when I've asked this question. The answers include excellent safety ratings, great gas mileage, handling, and cornering ability, among others. I don't believe any of these. That's because the first principle of the Culture Code is that the only effective way to understand what people truly mean is to ignore what they say. This is not to suggest that people intentionally lie or misrepresent themselves. What it means is that, when asked direct questions about their interests and preferences, people tend to give answers they believe the questioner wants to hear. Again, this is not because they intend to mislead. It is because people respond to these questions with their cortexes, the parts of their brains that control intelligence rather than emotion or instinct. They ponder a question, they process a question, and when they deliver an answer, it is the product of deliberation. They believe they are telling the truth. A lie detector would confirm this. In most cases, however, they aren't saying what they mean. -- The culture code.

Any code of your own that you haven’t looked at for six or more months might as well have been written by someone else. -- Eagleson’s Law

All creativity is an extended form of a joke. -- Alan Kay

Always code as if the guy who ends up maintaining your code will be a violent psychopath who knows where you live. -- Martin Golding

The problem is that small examples fail to convince, and large examples are too big to follow. -- Steve Yegge.

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. ~Bruce Feirstein

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can. –Arthur Ashe

If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got. ~Anonymous

Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. ~John R. Wooden