It was built to persuade young people that first-rate science can happen here and that we in Africa can experience the universe with the best of them.

That's something that should never happen. We've built too much up over the years for something like that to happen.

First-rate people hire first-rate people; second-rate people hire third-rate people.

For the corps to persuade people that it is part of the solution and not part of the problem, it will have to change its behavior, ... Continuing the practice of spreading funding across a wide range of projects in the hopes of growing the corps program will not be an acceptable answer. We have to return to a situation where the Corps of Engineers is respected for its professional engineering judgment.

When I teach writing, I have a mantra: 'Be a first-rate version of yourself, and not a second-rate version of another writer.'

For an industry that's built on science, the technology world sure has its share of myths.