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"In English every word can be verbed. Would that it were so in our programming languages."
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"Words are clothes that thoughts wear."

"Perhaps then one reason why we have no great poet, novelist or critic writing today is that we refuse to allow words their liberty. We pin them down to one meaning, their useful meaning: the meaning which makes us catch the train, the meaning which makes us pass the examination."

"A word is not filling in the gaps, but the fertilization of silence."

"He had a word, too. Love, he called it. But I had been used to words for a long time. I knew that that word was like the others: just a shape to fill a lack; that when the right time came, you wouldn't need a word for that anymore than for pride or fear."

"Our language now has become quick-moving (in syllables), and may be very supple and nimble, but is rather thin in sound and in sense too often diffuse and vague. the language of our forefathers, especially in verse, was slow, not very nimble, but very sonorous, and was intensely packed and concentrated - or could be in a good poet."

"Chameleonesque, hobbitish, unicorned, stompled, selfishism, and unwakeable may not be real words, but you do know what they mean."

"Words to intrigue, inspire, examine, question, praise; Words to help us appreciate our world, our selves, our games; Words to dance our true soul fires gracefully free."
Explore more quotes by Alan Perlis

"You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN."

"I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it."

"In computing, turning the obvious into the useful is a living definition of the word "frustration"."
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