“The overall intent is to make everyone sufficiently happy (or in some cases, insufficiently unhappy).”

“A couple of years ago, I ran into someone at a trade show who was representing the NSA (National Security Agency). He mentioned to someone else in passing that he'd written a filter program in Perl, so without telling him who I was, I asked him if I could tell people that the NSA uses Perl. His response was, "Doesn't everyone?" So now I don't tell people the NSA uses Perl. I merely tell people the NSA thinks everyone uses Perl. They should know, after all.”

“When they first built the University of California at Irvine they just put the buildings in. They did not put any sidewalks, they just planted grass. The next year, they came back and put the sidewalks where the trails were in the grass. Perl is just that kind of language. It is not designed from first principles. Perl is those sidewalks in the grass.”

“and don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space, because that's exactly how much difference there is”

“Perl doesn't have an infatuation with enforced privacy. It would prefer that you stayed out of its living room because you weren't invited, not because it has a shotgun”

“True greatness is measured by how much freedom you give to others, not by how much you can coerce others to do what you want.”

“For me, writing is a love-hate relationship.”