Assembly language experience is [important] for the maturity
and understanding of how computers work that it provides.
		-- D. Gries

Associate with well-mannered persons and your manners will improve.  Run
with decent folk and your own decent instincts will be strengthened.  Keep
the company of bums and you will become a bum.  Hang around with rich people
and you will end by picking up the check and dying broke.
		-- Stanley Walker

Astrology... just a bunch of Taurus.

Asynchronous inputs are at the root of our race problems.
		-- D. Winker and F. Prosser

At about 2500 A.D., humankind discovers a computer problem that *must* be
solved.  The only difficulty is that the problem is NP complete and will
take thousands of years even with the latest optical biologic technology
available.  The best computer scientists sit down to think up some solution.
In great dismay, one of the C.S. people tells her husband about it.  There
is only one solution, he says.  Remember physics 103, Modern Physics, general
relativity and all.  She replies, "What does that have to do with solving
a computer problem?"
	"Remember the twin paradox?"
	After a few minutes, she says, "I could put the computer on a very
fast machine and the computer would have just a few minutes to calculate but
that is the exact opposite of what we want... Of course!  Leave the
computer here, and accelerate the earth!"
	The problem was so important that they did exactly that.  When
the earth came back, they were presented with the answer:

	IEH032 Error in JOB Control Card.

At any given moment, an arrow must be either where it is or where it is
not.  But obviously it cannot be where it is not.  And if it is where
it is, that is equivalent to saying that it is at rest.
		-- Zeno's paradox of the moving (still?) arrow

At ebb tide I wrote a line upon the sand, and gave it all my heart and all
my soul.  At flood tide I returned to read what I had inscribed and found my
ignorance upon the shore.
		-- Kahlil Gibran

At first, I just did it on weekends.  With a few friends, you know...
We never wanted to hurt anyone.  The girls loved it.  We'd all sit
around the computer and do a little UNIX.  It was just a kick.  At
least that's what we thought.  Then it got worse.

It got so I'd have to do some UNIX during the weekdays.  After a
while, I couldn't even wake up in the morning without having that
crave to go do UNIX.  Then it started affecting my job.  I would just
have to do it during my break.  Maybe a `grep' or two, maybe a little
`more'.  I eventually started doing UNIX just to get through the day.
Of course, it screwed up my mind so much that I couldn't even
function as a normal person.

I'm lucky today, I've overcome my UNIX problem.  It wasn't easy.  If
you're smart, just don't start.  Remember, if any weirdo offers you
some UNIX,

	Just Say No!

At first sight, the idea of any rules or principles being superimposed on
the creative mind seems more likely to hinder than to help, but this is
quite untrue in practice.  Disciplined thinking focuses inspiration rather
than blinkers it.
		-- G. L. Glegg, "The Design of Design"

At Group L, Stoffel oversees six first-rate programmers,
a managerial challenge roughly comparable to herding cats.
		-- "The Washington Post Magazine", June 9, 1985

At last I've found the girl of my dreams.  Last night she said to me,
"Once more, Strange, and this time *I'll* be Donnie and *you* be Marie.
		-- Strange de Jim

At least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand.
		-- J. B. White

At least they're _E_X_P_E_R_I_E_N_C_E_D incompetents.

At no time is freedom of speech more precious than when a man hits his
thumb with a hammer.
		-- Marshall Lumsden

At once it struck me what quality went to form a man of achievement,
especially in literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously
-- I mean negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being
in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching
after fact and reason.
		-- John Keats

At social gatherings, I would amuse everyone by standing uponst the
coffee table and striking meself repeatedly upon the head with a brick.
		-- H. R. Gumby

At the end of your life there'll be a good rest,
and no further activities are scheduled.

At the foot of the mountain, thunder:
The image of Providing Nourishment.
Thus the superior man is careful of his words
And temperate in eating and drinking.

At the heart of science is an essential tension between two seemingly
contradictory attitudes -- an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre
or counterintuitive they may be, and the most ruthless skeptical scrutiny
of all ideas, old and new.  This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep
nonsense.  Of course, scientists make mistakes in trying to understand the
world, but there is a built-in error-correcting mechanism:  The collective
enterprise of creative thinking and skeptical thinking together keeps the
field on track.
		-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection"

At the hospital, a doctor is training an intern on how to announce bad news
to the patients.  The doctor tells the intern "This man in 305 is going to
die in six months.  Go in and tell him."  The intern boldly walks into the
room, over to the man's bedside and tells him "Seems like you're gonna die!"
The man has a heart attack and is rushed into surgery on the spot.  The doctor
grabs the intern and screams at him, "What!?!? are you some kind of moron?
You've got to take it easy, work your way up to the subject.  Now this man in
213 has about a week to live.  Go in and tell him, but, gently, you hear me,
gently!"
	The intern goes softly into the room, humming to himself, cheerily
opens the drapes to let the sun in, walks over to the man's bedside, fluffs
his pillow and wishes him a "Good morning!"  "Wonderful day, no?  Say...
guess who's going to die soon!"