Herb Sutter:

C is a poster child for why it's essential to keep those people who know a thing can't be done from bothering the people who are doing it.

Paul Ford:

When I tell people what we are doing, they want to hear about the room where you produce. I tell them that there is a lot of paperwork. That they take your picture and look at your license. Then they walk you back to the room. You are handed a list of instructions and some stickers and a plastic cup. The cup has a forest-green lid.

In the room is a VCR. No one sets a clock, but there is a sense of time passing. You get to work and try not to think about things.

James Collins, to Mark Zuckerberg:

In this so-called blind adoption, the adoptive parents believe the child is their own. It's complicated.

Paul Ford, on 21 September:

A few days ago we packed everything and went to the hospital. And a few hours after we arrived the clock -- our clock -- reset from 3.5 billion to zero.

Hello little girl. And two minutes later: Hello little boy.

Will Wilkinson:

As an undergrad I was an art major. Frankly, few of my fellow art majors were talented enough to make a living at it, even after four (or more!) years of training. Sure they loved art, but in the immortal words of Tina Turner, "What's love got to do with it?" "Find what you love and never settle for less" is an excellent recipe for frustration and poverty. "Reconcile yourself to the limits of your talent and temperament and find the most satisfactory compromise between what you love to do and what you need to do to feed your children" is rather less stirring, but it's much better advice.

Steve Jobs' gorgeous gadgets have no doubt helped some do what they love, and better. But mostly iStuff is so beloved because it offers such attractively pleasant diversion from the disappointment of having settled of necessity on lives we do not thoroughly love. To whom is watching Iron Man 2 on an iPad alone not settling?

Jonah Lehrer:

Curiosity is a fragile thing. It's the not knowing -- that tang of doubt and possibility -- that keeps us playing with the world, eager to figure out how it works.

Steven M. Johnson, on Steven M. Johnson, once described as "R. Crumb meets Buckminster Fuller":

Curious images have filled my mind during weekends and odd free moments. I love to surprise myself with ideas that I pulled out of the air. On my business card I describe myself as a Possibilitist.

Pew:

From liberal Democrats to Tea Party Republicans, there is broad public consensus that the budget negotiations of recent weeks can be summed up in words such as ridiculous, disgusting, stupid, and frustrating. Nationwide, 72% describe the recent negotiations in negative terms such as these; while very few offer a positive (2%), or even neutral (11%), assessment. Other frequently used terms include terrible, disappointing, childish, and joke.

Sady Doyle:

It's easy to imagine Hermione's origin story as some warmed-over Star Wars claptrap, with tragically missing parents and unsatisfying parental substitutes and a realization that she belongs to a hidden order, with wondrous (and unsettlingly genetic) gifts. But, no: Hermione's normal parents are her normal parents. She just so happens to be gifted. Being special, Rowling tells us, isn't about where you come from; it's about what you can do, if you put your mind to it. And what Hermione can do, when she puts her mind to it, is magic.