You can’t convince people that ugliness is beautiful. You can, however, convince them that it is bold, inspiring, visionary, unique, searching, thought-provoking, evocative, and unconventional.
School inculcates the bad habit of finishing books, as if they were assignments.
Never use five words where none will do.
Our thoughts run in loops, which we can hope only to make as long and deeply nested as possible.
Punishment must be harsh when it is neither swift nor sure.
We are apt to imagine software as scaling indefinitely, which it does not, because we think of it as a form of writing, which does.
An idea traces its influence not from its origin, which is lost in time, but from the point when it becomes inescapable.
Modern Westerners are, by historical standards, awash with leisure, much of which we use to complain about working all the time.
The power of a word lies in what it suggests, not what it means.
All the pleasures shall be guilty, except the nasty ones.