Being Geek Quotes

“The moment I walk into a bookstore, I remember what I love about them. They are an oasis of intellectual calm. Perhaps it’s the potential of all the ideas hidden behind those delicious covers. Or perhaps it’s the social reverence for the library-like quiet. You don’t yell in a bookstore; you’ll piss off the books.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Every time you say blah blah blah, a creative writing teacher dies.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“I’m a geek, and I might be a nerd, but I’m not a dork.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Each person on the planet has a small set of rules they silently repeat to themselves when they find themselves at a crossroads, and it's these core beliefs that structure their thinking and give them impetus to choose.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“You'll never complete everything you should.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Your career is defined by two tasks: what hard problems have you solved and whom have you joined in solving these problems? For me, the harder the problems, the trickier the people, the better. In an impossible challenge, I believe, there are invaluable lessons.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“The Web connects us, but the medium also filters out the aspects of humanity that make us interesting and knowable.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Relationships need time to bake. Trust doesn't magically appear; it's cautiously built over time via shared experience.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“People can vary from being poor communicators to being outright liars.
Politics and process often screw up people's value systems beyond recognition.
Evil things happen. Sometimes randomly.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“In a world where we spend a ton of time with people we'll never meet, achievements are the currency of respect and identity.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Nature abhors a vacuum, and in the absence of solid information, people generate their own information to fill that vacuum. They're not lying, they have no ill will; they're just trying to build a semblance of structure amongst the confusion.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“See, someone upstream from you fucked up badly. When the sky falls, it means someone, somewhere underestimated the project, didn't make a decision, or let a small miss turn into a colossal disaster, and while fixing a disaster feels great, you're not actually fixing anything.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“I'm in a hurry, but being in a hurry isn't an excuse for not taking a small amount of time to say something real.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Each time you open your mouth, you have an opportunity to build something.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Life in a big or small company is an information game where you are judged by the amount, accuracy, and timeliness of your information.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“You're not going to get promoted by giving your manager what he wants; a promotion comes when you give him what he wants as well as what he does not expect but deperately needs.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Knowledge isn't facts, and knowledge isn't data. It's your consumption of facts, data, situations, and personalities, and the consumption yields a discovery. It's when you mentally build something new. This knowledge may not be novel, but what makes it unique is that you built it for yourself.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“A reputation is a community-based opinion that you don't control. It takes years of work to develop and a single missed key responsibility to destroy.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“A good manager creates opportunity, but it's your responsibility to take it.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“Whether you're a manager or an individual, in software development, you own code and that code is in -- wait for it -- one of three states: you're writing it, you're fixing it, or you're maintaining it.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“What am I doing?

What do I do?

What matters to me? What do I care about?”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“direction. For me, technical direction is a reminder to care daily about my work. Growth is actively watching my career and making sure that today is not a dull repetition of yesterday. Finally, delivery is my daily investment in my reputation.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“You're the one who is actually responsible for delivering the impossible, and all I'm asking is that you consider the request because agreeing to engage in the impossible shatters normality and ignores fears, and I love that.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook

“The art in talking trash is the careful exploration of the edges of truth.”
― Michael Lopp, Being Geek: The Software Developer's Career Handbook