All non-trivial abstractions, to some degree, are leaky. -- Joel Spolsky (The Law of Leaky Abstractions)

Attitude is no substitute for competence. -- Eric S. Raymond, How to become a hacker

If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time, you're not aiming high enough. -- Alan Kay

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 advanced technology is undistinguishable from magic. -- Arthur C. Clarke

I think that a lot of programmers are ignoring an important point when people talk about reducing code repetition on large projects. Part of the idea is that large projects are intrinsically *wrong*. That you should be looking at making a number of smaller projects that are composable, even if you never end up reusing one of those smaller projects elsewhere. -- Dan Nugent

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

People who succeed have momentum. The more they succeed, the more they want to succeed, and the more they find a way to succeed. Similarly, when someone is failing, the tendency is to get on a downward spiral that can even become a self-fulfilling prophecy. ~Tony Robbins

Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. –Babe Ruth

If you don’t value your time, neither will others. Stop giving away your time and talents- start charging for it. ~Kim Garst