In the other languages I had learned up till then, there was the language and there was my program, written in the language, and the two were very separate. But in Lisp the functions and macros I wrote were just like those that made up the language itself. I could rewrite the language if I wanted. It had the same appeal as open-source software. Aim for Brevity.
Brevity is underestimated and even scorned.
But if you look into the hearts of hackers, you'll see that they really love it. I think anything that really smart people really love is worth paying attention to. I think almost anything you can do to make programs shorter is good. And it's not only programs that should be short. The manual should be thin as well.