My favourite Stroustrup quote on the design of C++ is probably from "How can you be so certain?":
> One of my fundamental aims for C++ is (from the very start in 1979) to provide equally good support for user-defined and built-in types. For example, I’d like to be able to build an integer type that is as good as the built-in int in every way
> One of my fundamental aims for C++ is (from the very start in 1979) to provide equally good support for user-defined and built-in types. For example, I’d like to be able to build an integer type that is as good as the built-in int in every way