A person won't retain proficiency at a task unless he or she has at one time learned to perform that task very rapidly. Learning research demonstrates that the skills of people who become accurate but not fast deteriorate much sooner than the skills of people who become both accurate and fast. -- Philip Greenspun

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

Everything that can be invented has been invented. -- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899

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.

Sound methodology can empower and liberate the creative mind; it cannot inflame or inspire the drudge. -- Frederick P. Brooks, No Sliver Bullet.

Any code of your own that you haven’t looked at for six or more months might as well have been written by someone else. -- Eagleson’s Law

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

Eighty percent of success is showing up. –Woody Allen

Don’t raise your voice, improve your argument. ~Anonymous

The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. ~Bruce Feirstein