“Programming is the art of doing one thing at a time”

“Legacy code. The phrase strikes disgust in the hearts of programmers. It conjures images of slogging through a murky swamp of tangled undergrowth with leaches beneath and stinging flies above. It conjures odors of murk, slime, stagnancy, and offal. Although our first joy of programming may have been intense, the misery of dealing with legacy code is often sufficient to extinguish that flame.”

“Code without tests is bad code. It doesn't matter how well written it is; it doesn't matter how pretty or object-oriented or well-encapsulated it is. With tests, we can change the behavior of our code quickly and verifiably. Without them, we really don't know if our code is getting better or worse.”

“From the get-go, my hair was programmed to fall out. One is grateful this so rarely happens with the pancreas or the eyeballs.”

“...for all art is one, as Kipling has written, and your art chooses you, not you the art.”

“Art with a big A makes professionals uneasy. All art is one, and there is no difference in the mystery of the craft, only in the hand and eye of the craftsman.”

“He's one of those smart, drifty young people who, after certain deliberations, decides he wants to do Something in the Arts but won't, possibly can't, think in terms of an actual job; who seems to imagine that youth and brains and willingness will simply summon an occupation, the precise and perfect nature of which will reveal itself in its own time.”