Perl is worse than Python because people wanted it worse.

Perhaps you should compile your Perl with long doubles one of these megaseconds.

— Larry Wall

At many levels, Perl is a 'diagonal' language.

— Larry Wall

A 'goto' in Perl falls into the category of hard things that should be possible, not easy things that should be easy.

— Larry Wall

As pointed out in a followup, Real Perl Programmers prefer things to be visually distinct.

— Larry Wall

What is the sound of Perl? Is it not the sound of a wall that people have stopped banging their heads against?

— Larry Wall

To Perl , or not to Perl, that is the kvetching.

— Larry Wall

There's many scripting languages in the world, Perl is a little bit special because it is based more on some ideas from the way…

— Larry Wall

[Boxed] Multiple bouncing balls in a box are a metaphor for community. Notice how the escaping balls explode. This is what happens to people…

— Larry Wall

Guilty as charged. Perl is happily ugly, and happily derivative.

— Larry Wall

Well, I think Perl should run faster than C.

— Larry Wall

Perl should remain fast and intuitive (to the extent that it is :-)

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers.

— Larry Wall

And besides, if Perl really takes off in the Windows space, I think the rest of us would just as soon have a double-agent…

— Larry Wall

Any false value is gonna be fairly boring in Perl, mathematicians notwithstanding.

— Larry Wall