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.

The problem is that Microsoft just has no taste. And I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way. -- Steve Jobs

Simplicity means the achievement of maximum effect with minimum means. -- Dr. Koichi Kawana

Thus, programs must be written for people to read, and only incidentally for machines to execute. -- Alan J. Perlis

Since programmers create programs out of nothing, imagination is our only limitation. Thus, in the world of programming, the hero is the one who has great vision. Paul Graham is one of our contemporary heroes. He has the ability to embrace the vision, and to express it plainly. His works are my favorites, especially the ones describing language design. He explains secrets of programming, languages, and human nature that can only be learned from the hacker experience. This book shows you his great vision, and tells you the truth about the nature of hacking. -- Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto, creator of Ruby

A CS professor once explained recursion as follows: A child couldn't sleep, so her mother told her a story about a little frog, who couldn't sleep, so the frog's mother told her a story about a little bear, who couldn't sleep, so the bear's mother told her a story about a little weasel... who fell asleep. ...and the little bear fell asleep; ...and the little frog fell asleep; ...and the child fell asleep. -- everything2.com

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. ~John D. Rockefeller

Fortune sides with him who dares. ~Virgil

People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing. ~Dale Carnegie

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have. ~Thomas Jefferson