Tim Berners-Lee Quotes

The Semantic Web isn't inherently complex. The Semantic Web language, at its heart, is very, very simple. It's just about the relationships between things.

The Semantic Web is not a separate Web but an extension of the current one, in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation.

If I'm alone at home, I get increasingly restless, bothered by the idea that I'm missing some crucial encounter out there somewhere. But if I'm left by myself in someone else's place, I often find myself a nice sense of peace engulfing me. I love sinking into an unfamiliar sofa with whatever book happens to be lying nearby.

I'm pretty much an open book. I am a fanatic golfer and golf nut. If I have three free hours any day, my first choice is to run to the golf course if the weather is nice.

Stand alone books are nice because they have everything all in one tidy little package. Neverwhere was awesome because you get action, adventure, character development, the exploration of a strange world, PLUS resolution of all the problems and mysteries at the end. No lines no waiting. That's very satisfying. Multi-volume stories are satisfying too, just in a different way.

...We try to have things both ways. We’ve always refused to live by the book and the rule; but then why start worrying because the world doesn’t treat us by rule?

A nice thing about war-not that anything about war is nice, I guess-is that while it's going on and you're in it, you never worry about doing the right thing.

The best thing about doing a signing tour is that numbers become faces. I got to sign books for six or seven thousand people, all of whom were dreadfully nice. Everything else, the interviews, the hotels, the plane travel, the best-seller lists, even the sushi, gets old awfully fast. Well, maybe not the sushi.

Fame is drag. The paparazzi culture is more pervasive than it used to be. On the positive side, it’s nice not to have to worry about bills.

Sit in a room and read--and read and read. And read the right books by the right people. Your mind is brought onto that level, and you have a nice, mild, slow-burning rapture all the time.

For years, I'd say yes to almost everything, trying to be nice and generous. Feeling obliged to be of service to the world. Maybe also a fear of being forgotten if I don't. But I paid the ultimate price in doing that, because for all those years, I got almost no work done! Some famous authors have written about this: that if they said yes to every request, then they'd never have time to write another book again.

If you want to write about a person who isn't nice, people say, "This is a bad book. It's about somebody I couldn't stand." But that's not the point. You don't have to like a character to like a book. Most of the time, people would misjudge and say, "I didn't like the book." No, you didn't like the character. That doesn't make it any less interesting of a book. In fact, to me, it makes it more interesting.

I'm not the creative one. I know that. If Rory Storm hadn't come along... and then The Beatles... I would have continued running around in teddyboy gangs. Today, well... I'd probably be a laborer. I'm glad I'm not, of course. It'll be nice to be part of history... some sort of history anyway. What I'd like to be is in school history books and be read by kids.

There's just something that feels nice about holding a comic book!

Children have a lot more to worry about from the parents who raised them than from the books they read.

So many book sections in newspapers and magazines used to be lively and vibrant places. Now they are gone. You just don't see many reviews anymore. I can't control that, so I don't worry about it. I just try to do what I do and write books that people find every entertaining. I don't worry about the critics.

If I book a hotel it's actually very funny. It's very nice to be a genuine Mr Smith.

It felt like an indulgence. Going back was painful, but, at the same time, it was nice to live with them again for a few pages. I got to live with my brother again for the entire book. Of course as I'm writing the book, I'm getting closer and closer to the end and I know what that means. I knew exactly where I was heading. It was really difficult, but it was nice to make them come alive for those scenes. It was good.

If you want access to the files of valuable information in a computer, you must understand how to retrieve the data by asking for it with the proper commands. Likewise, what enables you to get anything you want from your own personal databanks is the commanding power of asking questions.

I think the ultimate result of it is you can get inside the record.

It is never appropriate to comment on a woman's breasts. I would never do it on the street or at a supermarket, but when I'm sitting a table signing books, sometimes I notice that a woman will have remarkable breasts. And I will maybe quietly say something about it. It's not in a sexual way, because I'm a gay man - I would never say to a man "great ass" because that would be sort of creepy.. I hope it's not creepy to quietly tell a woman she has nice breasts.

It's the fantasy of first love. If you've been married for 400 years, as I have, it's nice to experience first love again and you can vicariously through a book. And it is such a fantasy. It takes you away from doing the dishes and the laundry. I think of this as a contemporary romance rather than erotic fiction.

I actually kind of like Janet Reno. She seems like a nice enough lady. But when you're basically going through the entire phone book trying to find women lawyers who don't have maids to pick the attorney general of the United States, how well can you do?

I like people, I really do. I like meeting people. But most of the time I would rather be at home reading a book than reading in a bookstore. It's a performance, and it ends up being all right, and then you have a nice shot of bourbon afterwards, and it's all good. I want to please people. I want to be nice. I want to be liked. As a result I say yes to everything. But it takes a lot of vital energy out of me.

When it comes to horror there's a strange need to analyze. When "evil children" fad happened, there was The Exorcist and The Other and The Omen. People would say, "What this really means is that Americans don't want to have kids anymore. They feel hostility towards their own children. They feel they're being tied down and dragged down." In fact, in most cases, what those books are about is nice children who are beset by forces beyond their control.