Computer Quotes

“First we thought the PC was a calculator. Then we found out how to turn numbers into letters with ASCII — and we thought it was a typewriter. Then we discovered graphics, and we thought it was a television. With the World Wide Web, we've realized it's a brochure.”
― Douglas Adams

“Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer; art is everything else.”
― Donald E. Knuth, Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About (Volume 136)

“Today," she told it, "death comes to all your circuits. Will it be slow and systematic or fast and brutal?" Considering, she circled it, "Tough decision. I've waited so long for this moment. Dreamed of it."

Showing her teeth, she began to roll up her sleeves.

"What," Roarke asked from the doorway that connected their work areas, "is that?"

"The former bane of my existence. The Antichrist of technology. Do we have a hammer?"

Studying the pile on the floor, he walked in. "Several, I imagine, of various types."

"I want all of them. Tiny little hammers, big, wallbangers, and everything in between."

"Might one ask why?"

"I'm going to beat this thing apart, byte by byte, until there's nothing left but dust from the last trembling chip."

"Hmmm." Roarke crouched down, examined the pitifully out-of-date system. "When did you haul this mess in here?"

"Just now. I had it in the car. Maybe I should use acid, just stand here and watch it hiss and dissolve. That could be good."

Saying nothing, Roarke took a small case out of his pocket, opened it, and chose a slim tool. With a few deft moves, he had the housing open.

"Hey! Hey! What're you doing?"

"I haven't seen anything like this in a decade. Fascinating. Look at this corrosion. Christ, this is a SOC chip system. And it's cross-wired."

When he began to fiddle, she rushed over and slapped at his hands. "Mine. I get to kill it."

"Get a grip on yourself," he said absently and delved deeper into the guts. "I'll take this into research."

"No. Uh-uh. I have to bust it apart. What if it breeds?”
― J.D. Robb, Witness in Death

“No one messes around with a nerd’s computer and escapes unscathed.”
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly

“Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window”
― Steve Wozniak

“Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.

We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

I have bought this wonderful machine — a computer ... it seems to me to be an Old Testament god, with a lot of rules and no mercy.”
― Joseph Campbell

“What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.”
― Steve Jobs

“I had been hobbled, perhaps even crippled by a pervasive internet society I had come to depend on and take for granted... hit enter and let Google, that twenty-first century Big Brother, take care of the rest.

In the Derry of 1958, the most up-to-date computers were the size of small housing developments, and the local paper was no help. What did that leave? I remembered a sociology prof I’d had in college - a sarcastic old bastard - who used to say, When all else fails, give up and go to the library.”
― Stephen King, 11/22/63

“The most important thing about a technology is how it changes people.”
― Jaron Lanier

“Something like missionary reductionism has happened to the internet with the rise of web 2.0. The strangeness is being leached away by the mush-making process. Individual web pages as they first appeared in the early 1990S had the flavor of personhood. MySpace preserved some of that flavor, though a process of regularized formatting had begun. Facebook went further, organizing people into multiple-choice identities, while Wikipedia seeks to erase point of view entirely.

If a church or government were doing these things, it would feel authoritarian, but when technologists are the culprits, we seem hip, fresh, and inventive. People will accept ideas presented in technological form that would be abhorrent in any other form. It is utterly strange to hear my many old friends in the world of digital culture claim to be the true sons of the Renaissance without realizing that using computers to reduce individual expression is a primitive, retrograde activity, no matter how sophisticated your tools are.”
― Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget

“Some people today are wandering generalities instead of meaningful specifics because they have failed to discover and mine the wealth of potentials in them.”
― Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

“You see, unlike most writers today, I do not use a computer. I write the old-fashioned way: on the walls of caves.”
― Cuthbert Soup, Another Whole Nother Story

“Kowkosvki? You handling this?”
“I am.”
The suit turned and stared at me with his dark eyes. “Detective Hayden. I take it you’re the shooter?”
“I am.”
“And you are?”
“Jack Ludefance. I’m a PI hired by Mr. Kingsley to investigate the murder of Professor Zambear.”
“Oh, yeah, I heard about you. Who’s in the bedroom?”
“Rudy Orkut. My computer tech.”
“Computer tech, huh? Any idea who this dead body is?”
“Not a clue.”
― Behcet Kaya, Uncanny Alliance

“How does it feel to be seven thousand years old?"
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On how I want to feel.”
― Greg Egan, Permutation City

“When I was a kid, they had a saying, 'to err is human but to really fuck it up takes a computer.’ ”
― Benjamin R. Smith, Atlas

“Writing is a lot like making soup. My subconscious cooks the idea, but I have to sit down at the computer to pour it out.”
― Robin Wells

“One two, one two,
Type a word or two.
Arrow left, arrow right,
Keep those fingers nice and tight.
Keys up, Keys down,
Move those digits all around.
One two, one two,
Type a word or two.”
― Jazz Feylynn

“If art interprets our dreams, the computer executes them in the guise of programs!”
― Alan J. Perlis, Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs

“In many schools today, the phrase "computer-aided instruction" means making the computer teach the child. One might say the computer is being used to program the child. In my vision, the child programs the computer and, in doing so, both acquires a sense of mastery over a piece of the most modern and powerful technology and establishes an intimate contact with some of the deepest ideas from science, from mathematics, and from the art of intellectual model building.”
― Seymour Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers, And Powerful Ideas

“Do you know what you sound like?' said Mrs. Oliver. 'A computer. You know. You're programming yourself. That's what they call it, isn't it? I mean you're feeding all these things into yourself all day and then you're going to see what comes out.”
― Agatha Christie, Hallowe'en Party

“Tα κομπιούτερ περιέχουν τόσο νοημοσύνη, όσο τα στερεοφωνικά συγκροτήματα περιέχουν μουσικά όργανα.”
― Penzias arno

“Δεν φοβάμαι τους ηλεκτρονικούς υπολογιστές. Φοβάμαι την έλλειψή τους.”
― ASIMOV ISAAC

“That doesn't upset too many people, but the fact that accessibility restrictions don't enter into the picture has caused more than one otherwise pacifistic soul to contemplate distinctly unpacifistic actions.”
― Scott Meyers, Effective C++: 55 Specific Ways to Improve Your Programs and Designs

“Reading on a computer screen gives you no sense of time or investment. The page always looks the same, and everything is always in the same exact spot. When reading the book, no matter how large or small it is, a tension builds, concurrent with your progress through its pages. I get a nervous excitement as I see the number of pages that remain to be read draining inexorably from the right to the left.”
― Ammon Shea, Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages

“When I live in someone's home, I keep a regular cloud backup of my computer data.”
― Steven Magee

“A serial killer should do a regular hard drive erase and reinstall of their computer operating system.”
― Steven Magee

“Declutter is the sensible way forward,
So I moved from Windows to Chrome OS.
Less cluttered in mind and machine,
More you shall find the peaceful pace.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Insan Himalayanoğlu: It's Time to Defect

“If you do not want to be the victim of a computer virus attack, you need to be using the latest version of the computer operating system.”
― Steven Magee

“Mum doesn't say anything because she's on the kitchen computer in her dressing gown. You'd think she was ignoring me deliberately, but she really is that engrossed is whatever dumb email she's writing.”
― Alice Oseman, Solitaire

“The true danger lies less in AI thinking like human, than human adopting an AI way of thinking.”
― Stephane Nappo