Rick Cook

"Wiz thought about what it would be like to work with a computer that killed the programmer every time it crashed and shuddered."

"It is a pity the universe doesn't use a segmented architecture with a protected mode!"

"Murphy said, 'Constants aren't', and Murphy was apparently one of the gods of this universe."

"He deliberately left them out of the code. After all, he rationalized, this is only version 1.0."

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning."

"Judith looked at the demons and shook her head. "I'm glad we didn't build four processors. I'm not sure I could take a barbershop quartet!""

"Programming is like pinball. The reward for doing it well is the opportunity to do it again."

""The question is, is that a bug or a feature?" Karl asked."

"Always secure your files, you never know who is lurking about."

"The law of similarity made any map a magical instrument."

""What was that?" Jerry asked, peering over the edge. "I think it was a ninja dwarf." Wiz said wonderingly..."

""We learned dwarves are not meant to fly." came a voice from the edge of the circle."

"It's how you get rid of cats. You get a 500-pound parakeet and teach it to say, "Here, kitty kitty kitty.""

"Never ask them for an explanation. You only end up worse confused."

"It's always the details that get you in trouble."

"The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a program patch and a user with an idea."

"As flat as an open can of coke, left on a programmer's desk over the weekend."

"What happened, get lost in the directory tree again?"