Larry Wall

Information doesn't want to be free. Information wants to be valuable.

— Larry Wall

Orthogonality for orthogonality's sake is not something I'm keen on.

— Larry Wall

Sometimes I wish I could put an expiration date on my quotes.

— Larry Wall

You want it in one line? Does it have to fit in 80 columns?

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

I won't mention any names, because I don't want to get sun4's into trouble.

— Larry Wall

Historically speaking, the presence of wheels in Unix has never precluded their reinvention.

— Larry Wall

We all agree on the necessity of compromise. We just can't agree on when it's necessary to compromise.

— Larry Wall

I talked about becoming stupid, but I've always been stupid. Fortunately I've been just smart enough to realize that I'm stupid.

— Larry Wall

Well, hey, let's just make everything into a closure, and then we'll have our general garbage collector, installed by 'use less memory'.

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

I think the way IBM has embraced the open source philosophy has been quite astonishing, but gratifying. I hope they'll do very…

— Larry Wall

But I know what's important to me, and what isn't. And I think I know what people can get used to, and…

— Larry Wall

Part of language design is perturbing the proposed feature in various directions to see how it might generalize in the future.

— Larry Wall

Even if you aren't in doubt, consider the mental welfare of the person who has to maintain the code after you, and…

— Larry Wall

I think computer science, by and large, is still stuck in the Modern age.

— Larry Wall

Let's say the docs present a simplified view of reality...

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

I wouldn't ever write the full sentence myself, but then, I never use goto either.

— Larry Wall

I suppose you could switch grammars once you've seen 'use strict subs'.

— Larry Wall

I think software patents are a bad idea. Many patents are given for trivial inventions.

— Larry Wall

All language designers are arrogant. Goes with the territory...

— Larry Wall

A journey of a thousand miles continues with the second step.

— Larry Wall

There's some entertainment value in watching people juggle nitroglycerin.

— Larry Wall

You need to go and find someone to teach you the rudiments of irrational discourse.

— Larry Wall

If you write something wrong enough, I'll be glad to make up a new witticism just for you.

— Larry Wall

Besides, REAL computers have a rename system call.

— Larry Wall

It should be illegal to yell 'Y2K' in a crowded economy.

— Larry Wall

It is easier to port a shell than a shell script.

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall

... an initial underscore already conveys strong feelings of magicalness to a C programmer.

— 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 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

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

— Larry Wall

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

— Larry Wall