## From the Archives: Code Quarterly's 2011 Q&A with Rich Hickey

Rich Hickey is frequently quoted as saying:

> You can reach a point with Lisp where, between the conceptual simplicity, the
> large libraries, and the customization of macros, you are able to write only
> code that matters.  And, once there, you are able to achieve a very high
> degree of focus, such as you would when playing Go, or playing a musical
> instrument, or meditating. And then, as with those activities, there can be a
> feeling of elation that accompanies that mental state of focus.

What's the source? This article, <http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/rich-hickey/>, which is a _Paris Review_ style Q&A interview between Michael Fogus and Rich Hickey in 2011, as part of the "hackademic journal" from Peter Seibel called _Code Quarterly_.

However, Peter Seibel's _Code Quarterly_ is no longer online ([source](https://gigamonkeys.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/end-of-the-line-for-code-quarterly/)). The original article is still accessible from <http://web.archive.org/web/20120326202249/http://www.codequarterly.com/2011/rich-hickey/>.

The enclosed .md and .pdf are a reformatting of the original, using [pandoc](http://pandoc.org/) and [rduplain/memo-builder](https://github.com/rduplain/memo-builder). [Download the PDF here](https://gist.github.com/rduplain/c474a80d173e6ae78980b91bc92f43d1/raw/3938ebc09d3a7ff17c83dd70145d549574ac0d0c/code-quarterly-rich-hickey-2011.pdf) or [a variant with tighter margins here](https://gist.github.com/rduplain/c474a80d173e6ae78980b91bc92f43d1/raw/1ae704c67f23722c5ba01730f8847de701299f19/code-quarterly-rich-hickey-2011-usletter.pdf).