Aaron Swartz Quotes

People who are more than casually interested in computers should have at least some idea of what the underlying hardware is like. Otherwise the programs they write will be pretty weird.

I think my dad did legal work for someone who had a Packard Bell 8088, and they couldn't pay him, so they gave him a computer. I was initially not allowed to touch it, but that didn't last long. I started tinkering with it, and there were many times I screwed up the computer.

I look like a geeky hacker, but I don't know anything about computers.

My dad used to build computers for the U.S. government, for military intelligence. So he always had computers around the house.

My mom bought a computer in the '80s to do accounting, and she was so smart at computers that we spent all our time with them. My childhood was sitting on the floor of her office and figuring out how to program with my mom.

There's my education in computers, right there; this is the whole thing, everything I took out of a book.

I had never touched a computer in my life before I came to Pixar.

I am very bad at computers. I don't really know how to write email.

The only legitimate use of a computer is to play games.

I started on computers with 'Billy Bathgate,' a little orange screen with black letters. I thought it was really cool, but it actually slowed me up for a while because it's so easy to revise, I tended to stay on the same page. I've learned to discipline myself.

I've been programming computers since elementary school, where they taught us, and I stuck with computer science through high school and college.

I got my first computer at, I don't know, when I was 11 years old? 10?

Even though most people won't be directly involved with programming, everyone is affected by computers, so an educated person should have a good understanding of how computer hardware, software, and networks operate.

I've heard that, but since I'm computer illiterate I don't know how it all works. But since I'm on Prodigy tonight, I'm learning a lot through my typist, Peter.

I'm not very technically minded. I mean, I don't know how to do e-mail on computers.

I started working at a point in history when digital computers were becoming mature, and before that, there were no such machines.

The whole thought of a career with computers - given that hardly anybody even knew what they were - it wasn't even a concept.

I got my first computer when I was 6, and I was part of that early generation of children who grew up with computers always being around. I fell in love with them early on.

I taught myself computer. Then Macintosh came along, and it became a really bad addiction. If I wasn't in show business, I'd have pocket protectors growing out of my chest. I do everything on it. It's kinda sick.

Dad was very into electronics, robotics and computers, so I was interested in what he was doing.

More than any other modern tool, computers are a total mystery to their users. Most people never open them up to fix them or to see how they work.

It always helps to be a good programmer. It is important to like computers and to be able to think of things people would want to do with their computers.

You don't have to be a nerd or a programmer or a network engineer to make a difference.

I use computers and the Internet every day of my life, and yet I have absolutely no idea how they work. I'm like a labrador watching 'The Matrix.'

Computers sort of came around through games and toys. And you know, the first computer most people had in the house may have been a computer to play 'Pong,' a little microprocessor embedded, and then other games that came after that.