I was talking recently to a friend who teaches at MIT. His field is hot now and every year he is inundated by applications from would-be graduate students. "A lot of them seem smart," he said. "What I can't tell is whether they have any kind of taste." -- Paul Graham

Getting back to failing early, I've learned it's important to completely fail. Get fired. Shoot the project, then burn its corpse. Melt the CVS repository and microwave the backup CDs. When things go wrong, I've often tried to play the hero from start to finish. Guess what? Some projects are doomed no matter what. Some need skills I don't possess. And some need a fresh face. -- Reginald Braithwaite

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

To solve your problems you must learn new skills, adapt new thought patterns, and become a different person than you were before that problem. God has crafted you for success. In the middle of every adversity lie your best opportunities. Discover it, build upon it and move forward in your journey to live an extraordinary life. You owe it to yourself to live a great life. Don’t let negative thoughts pull you down. Be grateful and open to learn and grow. -- http://secretsofstudying.com/

To do something well you have to love it. So to the extent you can preserve hacking as something you love, you're likely to do it well. Try to keep the sense of wonder you had about programming at age 14. If you're worried that your current job is rotting your brain, it probably is. -- Paul Graham.

If something isn’t working, you need to look back and figure out what got you excited in the first place. -- David Gorman (ImThere.com)

What’s the point of being alive if you don’t at least try to do something remarkable. ~Anonymous

Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. –Dalai Lama

If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. –Tony Robbins

If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb