"The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination." -FB
These beautiful metaphors by Brooks, from books like inmates running the asylum, etc - they made me romanticize the industry I had no idea about.
Now, about 20 years later, I wonder to which extent they influenced me to take the path I've taken. Because when I began, it wasn't lucrative or cool in the slightest.
Before that I hadn't even considered how necessary a product manager or project manager were in software development.
But it was the "No Silver Bullet" essay added as a bonus in my copy that I think about the most. "Never again will we see a 10x productivity increase in a decade", this is self-evident now but must have been crushing to people who had experienced the first compilers, the first high-level languages, the first interactive terminals, and waited for the next incredible leap.