"Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming."

“Advice to students: Leap in and try things. If you succeed, you can have enormous influence. If you fail, you have still learned something, and your next attempt is sure to be better for it. Advice to graduates: Do something you really enjoy doing. If it isn’t fun to get up in the morning and do your job or your school program, you’re in the wrong field.”

“Kernighan's home page at Princeton University”

“Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.”

“Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?”

“Each new user of a new system uncovers a new class of bugs.”

“Do what you think is interesting, do something that you think is fun and worthwhile, because otherwise you won't do it well anyway.”