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

Write it properly first. It's easier to make a correct program fast, than to make a fast program correct. -- http://www.cpax.org.uk/prg/

It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC. As potential programmers, they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration. -- E. W. Dijkstra

In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true and try to find out what it could be true of. -- George Miller

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. -- Blaise Pascal (attributed)

Heureux l'étudiant qui comme la Rivière peut suivre son cours sans quitter son lit... -- Sebastien, sur commentcamarche.net

Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable. ~Theodore N. Vail

Opportunities don’t happen, you create them. ~Chris Grosser

A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath them. ~Henry Kravis

Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them. ~Anonymous