The problems that I really like to solve are our cultural problems.

I think computer science, by and large, is still stuck in the Modern age.

Perl was designed to work more like a natural language. It's a little more complicated but there are more shortcuts, and once you learned the language, it's more expressive.

Programmers can be lazy.

Many days I don't write any code at all, and some days I spend all day writing code.

The world has become a larger place. The universe has been expanding, and Perl's been expanding along with the universe.

We are so Post-Modern that we don't realize how Post-Modern we are anymore.

I want people to use Perl. I want to be a positive ingredient of the world and make my American history. So, whatever it takes to give away my software and get it used, that's great.

I'm just paid to do whatever I want to do. Some of the time it's development, and some of the time it's just goofing off.

I'm never satisfied because I've been always interested in too many things and I always want to do everything at once.

There is no schedule. We are all volunteers, so we get it done when we get it done. Perl 5 still works fine, and we plan to take the right amount of time on Perl 6.

The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris.

The problems that I really like to solve are our cultural problems.

I think the way IBM has embraced the open source philosophy has been quite astonishing, but gratifying. I hope they'll do very well with it.

Doing linear scans over an associative array is like trying to club someone to death with a loaded Uzi.

I am not a sort of person who wants to run a company.

Younger hackers are hard to classify. They're probably just as diverse as the old hackers are. We're all over the map.

Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.

Post-Modernism was a reaction against Modernism. It came quite early to music and literature, and a little later to architecture. And I think it's still coming to computer science.

We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.

I take time to watch anime. I don't know whether I'm allowed to, but I do it anyway.

If you're a large corporation, you can afford to pay the money to register patents, but if you're an individual like me, you can't.

Hubris itself will not let you be an artist.

When I announced the development of Perl 6, I said it was going to be a community design. I designed Perl, myself. It's limited by my own brain power. So I wanted Perl 6 to be a community design.

Somebody out there is going to do something that's far more surprising than anything that I would do. I was surprised by the whole web thing in the first place.

For me, writing is a love-hate relationship.

To be a good artist, you have to serve the work of art and allow it to be what it is supposed to be.

I still drive my 1977 Honda Accord. The paint is almost all worn off. It's still running.

If any ideology is so serious that you can't have fun while you're doing it, it's probably too serious.

Some of modern engineering is necessary to good art. But I think of myself is a cultural artist.

I talked about becoming stupid, but I've always been stupid. Fortunately I've been just smart enough to realize that I'm stupid.

I think operating systems work best if they're free and open. Particular applications are more likely to be proprietary.

The Harvard Law states: Under controlled conditions of light, temperature, humidity, and nutrition, the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

One of the very basic ideas of Post-Modernism is rejection of arbitrary power structures. Different people are sensitive to different kinds of power structures.

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.

The problem with being consistent is that there are lots of ways to be consistent and theyre all inconsistent with each other.

Easy things should be easy and hard things should be possible.

Younger hackers are hard to classify. Theyre probably just as diverse as the old hackers are. Were all over the map.

The Harvard Law states Under controlled conditions of light temperature humidity and nutrition the organism will do as it damn well pleases.

Computer language design is just like a stroll in the park. Jurassic Park, that is.

'Lurking' is one metaphor that the Omniscience has allowed us to borrow.

Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.

Symmetry is overrated. Overrated is symmetry.

Every cinematographer I worked with had his own way of solving problems.

I have problems with machines which aren't gestural.

Women don't like advice. They don't want you to fix their problems, they just want you to listen.

Had the Hebrews not been disturbed in their progress a thousand and more years ago, they would have solved all the great problems of civilization which are being solved now under all the difficulties imposed by the spirit of the Middle Ages.

You can also make explicit certain social problems which, again, would be prejudged or not encountered at all in real life, because people have set up defenses against it. Fantasy allows you to get past defenses.

From dear, dear Gloria Swanson, I learned how to live long, happy and free of health problems. I owe her my life.