Steven Wright quotes I like

Right now I'm having amnesia and deja-vu at the same time. I think I've forgotten this before.

I wrote a few children's books...not on purpose.

I wrote a song, but I can't read music so I don't know what it is. Every once in a while I'll be listening to the radio and I say, "I think I might have written that."

I was trying to daydream, but my mind kept wandering.

I'm writing a book. I've got the page numbers done.

I went to a restaurant that serves "breakfast at any time". So I ordered French Toast during the Renaissance.

Simplicity quote

I was browsing http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/ when I came across this little gem:

Simplicity isn't achievable as a passive goal; it's a force that must be actively applied.
- Jeff Atwood, author of http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/

We artificially value complexity and busywork so much that we end up in the trap of tolerating the overly complex, poorly conceptualized, barely functioning institutions and objects we're surrounded by.

Taking the time to try different ways of conceptualizing the problem before building your thing not only results in a more beautiful and readily useful object, but it is also the polite thing to do toward other people who will have to use and look after the object when you are not around.

Quotes

From The Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Doesn't elite mean 'good?' Is that not something we're looking for in a president anymore? ... I know elite is a bad word in politics. You want to go bowling and throw back a few beers. But the job you're applying for---if you get it and it goes well---they might carve your head into a mountain. If you don't actually think you're better than us, then what the fuck are you doing? ... Not only do I want an elite president, I want someone who is embarrassingly superior to me.

From Real Time with Bill Maher:

Referring to voters who America has left behind economically as “bitter” isn’t an insult. In fact, it’s a compliment, acknowledging that they’re smart enough to understand what’s happening to them. The hopeful, now those are some idiots. So let’s separate the bitter – my people – from the idiots. If you think the Democrats are going to take away your Bible, you’re an idiot. If you think they’re going to take away your gun, you’re an armed idiot. And if you think they’re going to take away your gun and give it to a Mexican to kill your God, you’re Bill O’Reilly.

Quotes

The greatest crimes are not those committed for the sake of necessity but those committed for the sake of greed and excess. ONE DOES NOT BECOME A TYRANT TO MERELY AVOID EXPOSURE TO THE COLD.
- Aristotle "Politics"

"Feudalism was based on a 'ladder type' of organizational structure, similar to Amway. You started out on the bottom rung, in the position of serf. This was not an easy job, but if you worked hard, followed the rules, did not complain, and were a 'team player,' after a certain period of time you fell off the bottom rung and died."
- from page 2 of "Dave Barry's History of the Millennium (So Far)," by Dave Barry

The purpose of abstracting is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.
- Edsger W. Dijkstra, The Humble Programmer

If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

Dave Barry has defined a sense of humor as "a measurement of the extent to which we realize that we are trapped in a world almost totally devoid of reason. Laughter is how we express the anxiety we feel at this knowledge."

Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small _trivial_ project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way _useful_ first, and then others will say "hey, that _almost_ works for me", and they'll get involved in the project.
- Linus Torvalds

Out of nothing I have created a strange new universe.
[A reference to the creation of a non-euclidean geometry.]
- Bolyai, János (1802 - 1860)