Ginnie

“And there is one disconcerting thing about working with a computer – it's likely to talk back to you. You make some tiny mistake in your FORTRAN language – putting a letter in the wrong column, say, or omitting a comma – and the 360 comes to a screeching halt and prints out rude remarks, like "ILLEGAL FORMAT," or "UNKNOWN PROBLEM," or, if the man who wrote the program was really feeling nasty that morning, "WHAT'S THE MATTER STUPID? CAN'T YOU READ?" Everyone who uses a computer frequently has had, from time to time, a mad desire to attack the precocious abacus with an axe.”
― John Drury Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

“Most of the Navy work on peroxide was not directed towards missiles, but towards what was called "super performance" for fighter planes -an auxiliary rocket propulsion unit that could be brought into play to produce a burst of very high speed- so that when a pilot found six Migs breathing down his neck he could hit the panic button and perform the maneuver known as getting the hell out of here.”
― John D. Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

“Joe? You know that stuff you sent me to test for thermal stability? Well, first, it hasn't got any. Second, you owe me a new bomb, a new Wianco pickup, a new stirrer, and maybe a few more things I'll think of later. And third (crescendo and fortissimo) you'll have a couple of flunkies up here within fifteen minutes to clean up this (-bleep-) mess or I'll be down there with a rusty hacksaw blade..." I specified the anatomical use to which the saw blade would be put. End of conversation.”
― John D. Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants

“It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.”
― John Drury Clark, Ignition!: An informal history of liquid rocket propellants