Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I like mysteries.
I'm pretty bad at crying.
There is always one more bug to fix.
Writing is a very isolating occupation.
It is deep in our nature to make tools.
You can only get a beginner's mind once.
The human mind, as it turns out, is messy.
Truly new inventions take time to play out.
Abhorring error is not necessarily positive.
Even simple fixes can bring the whole system down.
Tools are not neutral. The computer is not a neutral tool.
The world of programmers is not going to change on its own.
I am not intimidated by puerile boys acting like pre-teens.
I feel the best villains are the ones you have feelings for.
The brain is plastic, continuously changing its organization.
The computer's there to serve the human being, not vice versa.
When I am around people I most admire, I tend to hug the wall.
Watching a program run is not as revealing as reading its code.
I hate to see capable, smart people out of work - young or old.
Genetics is where we come from. It's deeply natural to want to know.
The condition of my personal workspace is my own business, as I see it.
Computer programming has always been a self-taught, maverick occupation.
Software and digital devices are imbued with the values of their creators.
All things change, but we always have to think: what are we leaving behind?
Our Constitution is designed to change very slowly. It's a feature, not a bug.
Y2K has challenged a belief in digital technology that has been almost religious.
The act of voting, to put it in computing terms, is a question of user interface.
Programming is the art of algorithm design and the craft of debugging errant code.
I'm a pessimist. But I think I'd describe my pessimism as broken-hearted optimism.
I think storytelling in general is how we really deeply know things. It's ancient.
There's some intimacy in reading, some thoughtfulness that doesn't exist in machine experiences.
People talk about computer programmers as if computers are our whole lives. That's simply not true.
Technology does not run backward. Once a technical capability is out there, it is out there for good.
My mother told me that my birth mother got pregnant by a married man who didn't want to leave his wife.
Our relationship to the computer is much like our relationship to the car: rich, complex, socially messy.
I won't use Twitter. Twitter posts are thought-farts. I don't care about unconsidered thoughts of the moment.
People imagine that programming is logical, a process like fixing a clock. Nothing could be further from the truth.
UNIX always presumes you know what you're doing. You're the human being, after all, and it is a mere operating system.
The questions I am often asked about my career tend to concentrate not on how one learns to code but how a woman does.
It is one thing for an artist to experiment on a canvas, but it's entirely different to experiment on a living creature.
Programmers seem to be changing the world. It would be a relief, for them and for all of us, if they knew something about it.
What I hope is that those with the knowledge of the humanities break into the closed society where code gets written: invade it.
Staring prejudice in the face imposes a cruel discipline: to structure your anger, to achieve a certain dignity, an angry dignity.
'I am not adopted; I have mysterious origins.' I have said that sentence many times in the course of my life as an adopted person.
No one in the government is seriously penalized when Social Security numbers are stolen and misused; only the number-holders suffer.
With all the attention given to the personal computer, it's hard to remember that other companion machine in the room - the printer.
After we have put our intimate secrets and credit card numbers online, what can prevent us from putting our elections there as well?
Computer systems could not work without standards - an agreement among programs and systems about how they will exchange information.
I'm in no way saying that women can't take a tough code review. I'm saying that no one should have to take one in a boy-puerile atmosphere.
With every advance, you have to look over your shoulder and know what you're giving up - look over your shoulder and look at what falls away.