Larry Wall: Trending quotes (page 12)

“But I'm not here to talk about postmodernism. I tried to do that last spring, and afterwards I was thoroughly deconstructed by the deconstructionists for attempting to deconstruct deconstructionism. At least, that's the construction I put on their construction of it. I was talking about postmodern culture, and they thought I was talking about postmodern literature. Not at all the same thing!”

Larry Wall

Public Talks, "3rd State of the Onion"

Spring , Literature

“switch (ref $@) { OverflowError => warn 'Dam needs to be drained'; DomainError => warn 'King needs to be trained'; NuclearWarError => die; }”

Larry Wall

[199709302338.QAA17037@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Training

“In Clintonese, that would be 'You are free to infer that I was saying that.”

Larry Wall

[199809222305.QAA17574@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

“The problem with being consistent is that there are lots of ways to be consistent, and they're all inconsistent with each other.”

Larry Wall

Message-ID <20050516005559.GC26184@wall.org> http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.perl6.language/21259, to perl6-language mailing-list.
Other

Way , Problem

“Is LISP a candidate for a scripting language? While you can certainly write things rapidly in it, I cannot in good conscience call LISP a scripting language. By policy, LISP has never really catered to mere mortals… And, of course, mere mortals have never really forgiven LISP for not catering to them.”

Larry Wall

Public Talks, The State of the Onion 11

“And I don't like doing silly things (except on purpose).”

Larry Wall

Usenet postings, 1992

“If you're going to define a shortcut, then make it the base [ sic] darn shortcut you can.”

Larry Wall

[199709241628.JAA08908@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“If I allowed 'next $label' then I'd also have to allow 'goto $label', and I don't think you really want that…”

Larry Wall

[1991Mar11.230002.27271@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

Thinking

“In general, if you think something isn't in Perl, try it out, because it usually is.”

Larry Wall

[1991Jul31.174523.9447@netlabs.com, 1991]
Usenet postings, 1991

Thinking

“Wow, I'm being shot at from both sides. That means I *must* be right.”

Larry Wall

[199710211959.MAA18990@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“Well, I think Perl should run faster than C.”

Larry Wall

[199801200306.TAA11638@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Thinking

“It's getting harder and harder to think out loud. One of these days someone's gonna go off and kill Thomas a'Becket for me…”

Larry Wall

[199709242015.NAA10312@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Thinking

“I hope I'm not getting so famous that I can't think out load [ sic] anymore.”

Larry Wall

[199709032332.QAA21669@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

Hope , Thinking

“When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi.”

Larry Wall

In the perl man page.
Documentation

“The whole intent of Perl 5's module system was to encourage the growth of Perl culture rather than the Perl core.”

Larry Wall

[199705101952.MAA00756@wall.org, 1997]
Usenet postings, 1997

“There ain't nothin' in this world that's worth being a snot over.”

Larry Wall

[1992Aug19.041614.6963@netlabs.com, 1992]
Usenet postings, 1992

World

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

Larry Wall

[1992Sep21.214659.22849@netlabs.com, 1992]
Usenet postings, 1992

Death

“The way I see it, if you declare something portable, you'll always be wrong, and if you declare it non-portable, you'll always be right.”

Larry Wall

[199806232215.PAA02356@wall.org, 1998]
Usenet postings, 1998

Way

“There are still some other things to do, so don't think if I didn't fix your favorite bug that your bug report is in the bit bucket. (It may be, but don't think it.”

Larry Wall

[7238@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Thinking

“I'm sure that that could be indented more readably, but I'm scared of the awk parser.”

Larry Wall

[6849@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990