An expert is, according to my working definition "someone who doesn't need to look up answers to easy questions". -- Eric Lippert.

The wonderful and frustrating thing about understanding yourself is that nobody can do it for you. -- BetterExplained.com

Simple things should be simple. Complex things should be possible. -- Alan Kay

Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. -- Randy Pausch

Mastering isn’t a survival instinct; it’s an urge to excel. Mastering is one of the experiences that delineates us from animals. It is striving to be more tomorrow than we are today; to perfectly pitch the ball over home plate; to craft the perfect sentence in an article; to open the oven and feel the warm, richly-scented cloud telling you dinner is going to be absolutely extraordinary. We humans crave perfection, to be masters of our domain, to distinguish ourselves by sheer skill and prowess. -- Joesgoals.com

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

If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. –Abigail Van Buren

The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. –Mark Twain

There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed. ~Ray Goforth

Believe you can and you’re halfway there. –Theodore Roosevelt