Larry Wall

Don't wear rollerskates to a tug-of-war.

— Larry Wall

Information wants to be useful.

— Larry Wall

The autodecrement is not magical.

— Larry Wall

Accidental stacks considered harmful.

— Larry Wall

Just don't create a file called '-rf.'

— Larry Wall

It's there as a sop to former Ada programmers.

— Larry Wall

Portability should be the default.

— Larry Wall

Call me bored, but don't call me boring.

— Larry Wall

My arthritic pinkies are already starting to ache just thinking about ||||=.

— Larry Wall

I note that the Python folks still think they like JPython. I wonder how long that will last?

— Larry Wall

I think I'll side with the pissheads on this one.

— Larry Wall

I'm sorry, but you just made me lose my sense of humor, which is deeply regrettable.

— Larry Wall

I take time to watch anime. I don't know whether I'm allowed to, but I do it anyway.

— Larry Wall

When's the last time you used duct tape on a duct?

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

If you want your program to be readable, consider supplying the argument.

— Larry Wall

I'm never satisfied because I've been always interested in too many things and I always want to do everything at once.

— Larry Wall

Perl doesn't have an infatuation with enforced privacy. It would prefer that you stayed out of its living room because you weren't…

— Larry Wall

Real theology is always rather shocking to people who already think they know what they think. I'm still shocked myself.

— Larry Wall

The only reason [not to use] perl is that some sysadmins don't allow software that they didn't pay for. By all means,…

— Larry Wall

This job of playing God is a little too big for me. Nevertheless, someone has to do it, so I'll try my…

— Larry Wall

[Perl] gives you the STDERR filehandle so that your program can make snide comments off to the side while it transforms (or…

— Larry Wall

The court finds everyone to be in contempt (including himself :-), and orders everyone sentenced to five years hard labor. (Working on…

— Larry Wall

The problem with using C++ ... is that there's already a strong tendency in the language to require you to know everything…

— Larry Wall

A lazy person will try to always find some way to do something; they'll always be looking for ways of doing something…

— Larry Wall

When I announced the development of Perl 6, I said it was going to be a community design. I designed Perl, myself.…

— Larry Wall

I'm not too concerned about the future of Perl after me, because I see how these people are interacting with each other…

— Larry Wall

So many computer languages try to force you into one way of thinking and Perl is very much the opposite of that…

— Larry Wall

You don't have to know the whole language to use it usefully, you can do baby talk, you can do grown up…

— Larry Wall

I've decided I don't want to be a manager. Every time you try to be responsive to your employees, they say you're…

— Larry Wall

Natural languages generally are not designed by humans, they're just designed by the participants and you say something new and somebody else…

— Larry Wall

I've had to learn kind of sense when the questions would be coming and be ready to handle them. There's a lot…

— Larry Wall

I'm definitely a night owl. I get going about the time my wife crashes and goes to bed. And in some sense,…

— Larry Wall

“The best way to figure out what Perl is used for is to look at the ... Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (the…

— Larry Wall

“Modernism was based on a kind of arrogance ... and led designers to believe that if they thought of something cool, it…

— Larry Wall

“A couple of years ago, I ran into someone at a trade show who was representing the NSA (National Security Agency). He…

— Larry Wall

For me, writing is a love-hate relationship.

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

Perl programming is an *empirical* science!

— Larry Wall

I'm a great believer in visual distinctions.

— Larry Wall