Eric S. Raymond

The next best thing to having good ideas is recognizing good ideas from your users.

Lisp is worth learning for the profound enlightenment experience you will have when you finally get it; that experience will make you a better programmer for the rest of your days, even if you never actually use Lisp itself a lot.

Computer science education cannot make anybody an expert programmer any more than studying brushes and pigment can make somebody an expert painter.

Every good work of software starts by scratching a developer’s personal itch.