Larry Wall Quotes

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

Programmers can be lazy.

Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

Beauty? What's that?

I don't think it's worth washing hogs over.

What you'll need most is courage. It is not an easy path that you've set your foot upon.

The heart and never-say-die attitude was key. The guys just battled and battled. We've got a lot of guys going both ways, had some key injuries the week before, but a lot of guys stepped up and that's what it's all about.

We won't know any of that until that monster moves on through.

About a third of the nation's refining capacity is either down or in peril, ... you will see prices go up. But it will be only temporary.

That was huge, in a 7-7 game to give us great field position. That was probably the difference in the football game right there.

That is a conservative estimate.

We're still trying to get a handle on this thing, but it is too soon to put firm numbers on the damage. This is one of the worst calamities we've been through and it is one of the worst I've seen as far as hurricane damage.

When Ivan hit last year, it passed over 150 platforms.