I started life washing cars in Canada before moving on to selling life insurance and vacuum cleaners. Later, I went through a programme by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, which literally changed my life. It was the turning point.

On my business card, I am a corporate president. In my mind, I am a computer programmer. But in my heart, I am a gamer.

If you're thinking of coming to America, this is what it's like: you've got your Comfort Inn, you've got your Best Western, and you've got your Red Lobster where you eat. Everybody's very fat, everybody's very stupid and everybody's very rude - it's not a holiday programme, it's the truth.

You can measure a programmer's perspective by noting his attitude on the continuing vitality of FORTRAN.

There have been times I've said a few things in anger when we've lost. But it's just how I'm programmed. I want to win.

I was never jailed. The fact is that I was arrested, but I went into a diversion programme, and by that time I'd already begun working in what was called anger management. It was a painful and awful moment.

Apart from anything else, I am designed by evolution, like we all are: if we see a little thing like that, big eyes, tiny nose, we go 'aaah'. That's what evolution does. We are programmed to do that. So to find babies the most amazing, isn't surprising, I don't think.

Your mouth is not given to you for feeding alone; it is given to you to programme events and circumstance around you.

"My mind has been positively programmed to accept my flaws, faults, and failures with laughter, joy, and gratitude.

For the longest time in our history now, Christians have been programmed to think that they're the elite crowd of the human race. And yes, Christians look down on others. It's scary.

Contemplative prayer is natural, unprogrammed; it is perpetual openness to God, so that in the openness his concerns can flow in and out of our minds as he wills.

The world does not speak. Only we do. The world can, once we have programmed ourselves with a language, cause us to hold beliefs. But it cannot propose a language for us to speak. Only other human beings can do that.

In general, I try and distinguish between what one calls the Future and "l'avenir" [the 'to come]. The future is that which ? tomorrow, later, next century ? will be. There is a future which is predictable, programmed, scheduled, foreseeable. But there is a future, l'avenir (to come) which refers to someone who comes whose arrival is totally unexpected. For me, that is the real future. That which is totally unpredictable. The Other who comes without my being able to anticipate their arrival. So if there is a real future, beyond the other known future, it is l'avenir in that it is the coming of the Other when I am completely unable to foresee their arrival.

I predict we will abolish suffering throughout the living world. Our descendants will be animated by gradients of genetically pre-programmed well-being that are orders of magnitude richer than today's peak experiences.

Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It's ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.

"And I want to play hide-and-seek and give you my clothes and tell you I like your shoes and sit on the steps while you take a bath and massage your neck and kiss your feet and hold your hand and go for a meal and not mind when you eat my food and meet you at Rudy's and talk about the day and type up your letters and carry your boxes and laugh at your paranoia and give you tapes you don't listen to and watch great films and watch terrible films and complain about the radio and take pictures of you when you're sleeping and get up to fetch you coffee and bagels and Danish and go to Florent and drink coffee at midnight and have you steal my cigarettes and never be able to find a match and tell you about the tv programme I saw the night before and take you to the eye hospital and not laugh at your jokes and want you in the morning but let you sleep for a while and kiss your back and stroke your skin and tell you how much I love your hair your eyes your lips your neck your breasts your arse your

The intellectual property situation is bad and getting worse. To be a programmer it requires that you understand as much law as you do technology.

Real programmers can write assembly code in any language.

The Olympic Games must not be an end in itself they must be a means of creating a vast programme of physical education and sports competitions for all young people.

Nah I don't watch TV either apart from a few sports programmes. I just don't have the time.

It certainly is dangerous that there are only a few clubs left in Europe that can afford to pay millions. At the end of the day however the spectators decide the rates of pay - by watching the games and consuming the goods and services advertised on sports TV programmes.

The most watched programme on the BBC after the news is probably 'Doctor Who.' What has happened is that science fiction has been subsumed into modern literature. There are grandparents out there who speak Klingon who are quite capable of holding down a job. No one would think twice now about a parallel universe.

NASA has been one of the most successful public investments in motivating students to do well and achieve all they can achieve. It's sad that we are turning the programme in a direction where it will reduce the amount of motivation and stimulation it provides to young people.

The positive heuristic of the programme saves the scientist from becoming confused by the ocean of anomalies.