Asimov Quotes

A really good story does not answer everything. After all, life doesn't answer everything. There remain ambiguities. There remains room for doubt. ~ Isaac Asimov

It amounts to a diseased attitude - a conditioned reflex that shunts aside the independence of your minds whenever it is a question of opposing authority. ~ Isaac Asimov

Once, when a religionist denounced me in unmeasured terms, I sent him a card saying, I am sure you believe that I will go to hell when I die, and that once there I will suffer all the pains and tortures the sadistic ingenuity of your deity can devise and that this torture will continue forever. Isn't that enough for you? Do you have to call me bad names in addition? ~ Isaac Asimov

This your brain. This is your brain on Facebook. Any questions? ~ James Patrick Kelly

Scientific truth is beyond loyalty and disloyalty. ~ Isaac Asimov

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist. ~ Isaac Asimov

Mathematicians deal with large numbers sometimes, but never in their income. ~ Isaac Asimov

Humanity is cutting down its forests, apparently oblivious to the fact that we may not be able to live without them. ~ Isaac Asimov

You mean that this is a matter of patriotism and traders aren't patriotic?"
"Notoriously not. Pioneers never are. ~ Isaac Asimov

Where history concerns mainly personalities, the drawings become either black or white according to the interests of the writer. ~ Isaac Asimov

when the old empire began to rot at the fringes, it could be considered that science, as science, had failed the outer worlds. To be re-accepted it would have to present itself in another guise ~ Isaac Asimov

Can't you try>? However useless the effort may seem to you to be, have you anything better to do with your life? Have you some worthier goal? Have you a purpose that will justify you in your own eyes to some greater extent? ~ Isaac Asimov

Radiation, unlike smoking, drinking, and overeating, gives no pleasure, so the possible victims object. ~ Isaac Asimov

Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous. ~ Isaac Asimov

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do. ~ Isaac Asimov

There is nothing so eternally adhesive as the memory of power. ~ Isaac Asimov

I never considered myself a patriot. I like to think I recognize only humanity as my nation. ~ Isaac Asimov

Any planet is 'Earth' to those that live on it. ~ Isaac Asimov

Five common traits of good writers: (1) They have something to say. (2) They read widely and have done so since childhood. (3) They possess what Isaac Asimov calls a "capacity for clear thought," able to go from point to point in an orderly sequence, an A to Z approach. (4) They're geniuses at putting their emotions into words. (5) They possess an insatiable curiosity, constantly asking Why and How. ~ James J. Kilpatrick

Human beings sometimes find a kind of pleasure in nursing painful emotions, in blaming themselves without reason or even against reason. ~ Isaac Asimov

Pions are the mediating particles of the strong nuclear interaction. The intensity of the interaction depends on the mass of the pions and that mass can, under certain specialized conditions, be altered. The Lunar physicists have developed an instrument they call the Pionizer, which can be made to do jut such a thing. Once the pion's mass is decreased, or increased for that matter, it is, effectively, part of another Universe; it becomes a gateway, a crossing point. ~ Isaac Asimov

Clarke's First Law - Corollary: When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion - the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right. ~ Isaac Asimov

Education isn't something you can finish ~ Isaac Asimov

I'm an indoors person. I'm not afraid of the outdoors and I penetrate it easily and cheerfully. However, I must admit I like Central Park better than the wilderness, and I like the canyons of Manhattan better than Central Park, and I like the interior of my apartment better than the canyons of Manhattan, and I like my two rooms better with the shades down at all times than with the shades up. I'm not an agoraphobe at all, but I am a claustrophile, if you see the distinction. ~ Isaac Asimov

Lord Dorwin, gentlemen, in five days of discussion didn't say one damned thing, and said it so you never noticed. ~ Isaac Asimov

But life is glorious when it is happy; days are carefree when they are happy; the interplay of thought and imagination is far and superior to that of muscle and sinew. Let me tell you, if you don't know it from your own experience, that reading a good book, losing yourself in the interest of words and thoughts, is for some people (me, for instance) an incredible intensity of happiness. ~ Isaac Asimov

Why, they are so sure of themselves that they do not even hurry. They move slowly, phlegmatically; they speak of necessary centuries. They swallow worlds at leisure; creep through systems with dawdling complacence. ~ Isaac Asimov

Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain. ~ Isaac Asimov

Now why should there be a special word for a man with dark skin? There was no special word for a man with blue eyes, or large ears, or curly hair. ~ Isaac Asimov

Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence. ~ Isaac Asimov

The Dantean conceptions of Inferno were childish and unworthy of the divine imagination: fire and torture. Boredom is much more subtle. The inner torture of a mind unable to escape itself in any way, condemned to fester in its own exuding mental pus for all time, is much more fitting. ~ Isaac Asimov

I stand four-square for reason, and object to what seems to me to be irrationality, whatever the source.
If you are on my side in this, I must warn you that the army of the night has the advantage of overwhelming numbers, and, by its very nature, is immune to reason, so that it is entirely unlikely that you and I can win out.
We will always remain a tiny and probably hopeless minority, but let us never tire of presenting our view, and of fighting the good fight for the right. ~ Isaac Asimov

Rabbi Loew of sixteenth-century Prague. He is supposed to have formed an artificial human being - a robot - out of clay, just as God had formed Adam out of clay. A clay object, however much it might resemble a human being, is "an unformed substance" (the Hebrew word for it is "golem"), since it lacks the attributes of life. Rabbi Loew, however, gave his golem the attributes of life by making use of the sacred name of God, and set the robot to work protecting the lives of Jews against their persecutors. ~ Isaac Asimov

Tell me why the stars do shine,
Tell me why the ivy twines,
Tell me what makes skies so blue,
And I'll tell you why I love you.
Nuclear fusion makes stars to shine,
Tropisms make the ivy twine,
Raleigh scattering make skies so blue,
Testicular hormones are why I love you. ~ Isaac Asimov

- It lacks glamour?
- It lacks mob emotion-appeal.
- Same thing. ~ Isaac Asimov

At two-tenths the speed of light, dust and atoms might not do significant damage even in a voyage of 40 years, but the faster you go, the worse it is
space begins to become abrasive. When you begin to approach the speed of light, hydrogen atoms become cosmic-ray particles, and they will fry the crew ... So 60,000 kilometers per second may be the practical speed limit for space travel. ~ Isaac Asimov

The Solarians have given up something mankind has had for a million years; something worth more than atomic power, cities, agriculture, tools, fire, everything; because it's something that made everything possible ( ... ) The tribe, sir. Cooperation between individuals. ~ Isaac Asimov

John Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war. ~ Isaac Asimov

The age of the pulp magazine was the last in which youngsters, to get their primitive material, were forced to be literate. ~ Isaac Asimov

All you have to do is take a close look at yourself and you will understand everyone else. ~ Isaac Asimov

Earthmen may even rule at Trantor for a generation, but their children will become Trantorians, and in their turn will look down upon the remnant on Earth. ~ Isaac Asimov

It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. ~ Isaac Asimov

Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience. ~ Isaac Asimov

Throughout you have invariably relied on authority or on the past - never on yourselves. ~ Isaac Asimov

He would have to ask questions constantly, take nothing for granted. There would be so many opportunities to miss the obvious, so many chances to misunderstand, so many ways of taking the wrong path. 11 ~ Isaac Asimov

You are the only one responsible for your own wants. ~ Isaac Asimov

On Earth, we have a continuous influx of young people who are willing to change because they haven't had time to grow hard set in their ways. I suppose there's some optimum. A life long enough for real accomplishment and short enough to make way for youth at a rate that's not too slow. ~ Isaac Asimov

George Weston, after all was only a man - poor thing - and his wife made full use of every device which a clumsier and more scrupulous sex has learned, with reason and futility, to fear. ~ Isaac Asimov

To [the government] it didn't matter what happened to the American people as long as america in the abstract was kept strong. ~ Isaac Asimov

A moving finger having once written could never be lured back to unwrite. ~ Isaac Asimov

I'm not a speed reader. I'm a speed understander. ~ Isaac Asimov

Gadgetry will continue to relieve mankind of tedious jobs. Kitchen units will be devised that will prepare 'automeals,' heating water and converting it to coffee; toasting bread; frying, poaching or scrambling eggs, grilling bacon, and so on. Breakfasts will be 'ordered' the night before to be ready by a specified hour the next morning.
Communications will become sight-sound and you will see as well as hear the person you telephone. The screen can be used not only to see the people you call but also for studying documents and photographs and reading passages from books. Synchronous satellites, hovering in space will make it possible for you to direct-dial any spot on earth, including the weather stations in Antarctica.
[M]en will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. By 2014, electroluminescent panels will be in common use. Ceilings and walls will glow softly, and in a variety of colors that will change at the touch of a push button.
Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence.
The appliances of 2014 will have no electric cords, of course, for they will be powered by long- lived batteries running on radioisotopes.
"[H]ighways … in the more advanced sections of the world will have passed their peak in 2014; there will be increasing emphasis on transportation that makes the least possible contact with the surface. There will be aircraft, of course, but ev ~ Isaac Asimov

To him, a stilted geometric love of arrangement was "system," and indefatigable and feverish interest in the pettiest facets of day-to-day bureaucracy was "industry", indecision when right was "caution", and blind stubbornness when wrong, "determination. ~ Isaac Asimov

Jessie rummaged through her purse for the necessary equipment. If there were one thing, Baley had once said solemnly, that had resisted mechanical improvement since medieval times, it was a woman's purse. ~ Isaac Asimov

One thought that occurs to me is that men will continue to withdraw from nature in order to create an environment that will suit them better. ~ Isaac Asimov

The whole business is the crudest sort of stratagem, since we have no way of foreseeing it to the end. It is a mere paying out of rope on the chance that somewhere along the length of it will be a noose. ~ Isaac Asimov

Some readers may realize that this story, first published in 1956, has been overtaken by events. In 1965, astronomers discovered that Mercury does not keep one side always to the Sun, but has a period of rotation of about fifty-four days, so that all parts of it are exposed to the sunlight at one time or another.
Well, what can I do except say that I wish astronomers would get things right to begin with?
And I certainly refuse to change the story to suit their whims. ~ Isaac Asimov

Life is a journey, but don't worry, you'll find a parking spot at the end. ~ Isaac Asimov

Enough, my very noble husband. You had another of your vacillating consultations with your councilors. Fine advisors." With infinite scorn, "A herd of palsied purblind idiots hugging their sterile profits close to their sunken chests in the face of my father's displeasure. ~ Isaac Asimov

My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. Creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones. ~ Isaac Asimov

Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning. ~ Isaac Asimov

The ones that landed near the bathroom are Bad Tolkien imitations or transcripts of a D&D adventure; bad Herbert, Heinlein, and Asimov are below the television; and these on the bed are the ones whose authors I want to hunt down personally and slap. ~ Sharyn McCrumb

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it. Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself. ~ Isaac Asimov

Stoop, then, or you will be beaten to your knees. Stoop voluntarily, and you may save a remnant. You have depended on metal and power and they have sustained you as far as they could. You have ignored mind and morale and they have failed you. ~ Isaac Asimov

Don't you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don't you believe in telepathy? - in ancient astronauts? - in the Bermuda triangle? - in life after death?
No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.
One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out "Don't you believe in anything?"
Yes", I said. "I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be. ~ Isaac Asimov

The religion we have is our all-important instrument towards that end. With it we have brought the Four Kingdoms under our control, even at the moment when they would have crushed us. It is the most potent device known with which to control men and worlds. ~ Isaac Asimov

Space, man, have you no respect for science? ~ Isaac Asimov

When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent. ~ Isaac Asimov

In accordance with the terms of the Clarke-Asimov treaty, the second-best
science writer dedicates this book to the second-best science-fiction
writer.
[dedication to Isaac Asimov from Arthur C. Clarke in his book Report on Planet Three] ~ Arthur C. Clarke

We would grow tired of it, Grandpa, if it were beautiful all the time. A little change from night to night is good for us.'

'For you, because you're young, Wanda. You have many, many evenings ahead of you. I don't. I want more good ones. ~ Isaac Asimov

three ships lost in the same sector in the same year can't be accident, and ~ Isaac Asimov

Even the purest and most high-minded scientist finds it expedient sometimes to assault the fortress of truth with the blunt weapon of trail and error. sometimes it works beautifully. ~ Isaac Asimov

Science is uncertain. Theories are subject to revision; observations are open to a variety of interpretations, and scientists quarrel amongst themselves. This is disillusioning for those untrained in the scientific method, who thus turn to the rigid certainty of the Bible instead. There is something comfortable about a view that allows for no deviation and that spares you the painful necessity of having to think. ~ Isaac Asimov

The facts, gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching. ~ Isaac Asimov

Oh, hell! I can't sleep!" "Neither can I! But I might as well try - as a matter of principle." Twelve hours later, sleep was still just that - a matter of principle, unattainable in practice. ~ Isaac Asimov

I came into science fiction at a very good time, when the doors were getting thrown open to all kinds of more experimental writing, more literary writing, riskier writing. It wasn't all imitation Heinlein or Asimov. And of course, women were creeping in, infiltrating. Infesting the premises. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

If you ask for too much, you lose even that which you have. ~ Isaac Asimov

So, then, what is style? There are two chief aspects of any piece of writing: 1) what you say and 2) how you say it. The former is "content" and the latter is "style." ~ Isaac Asimov

He threw his cigar away and looked up at the outstretched Galaxy. "Back to oil and coal, are they?" he murmured - and what the rest of his thoughts were he kept to himself. ~ Isaac Asimov

What I will be remembered for are the Foundation Trilogy and the Three Laws of Robotics. What I want to be remembered for is no one book, or no dozen books. Any single thing I have written can be paralleled or even surpassed by something someone else has done. However, my total corpus for quantity, quality and variety can be duplicated by no one else. That is what I want to be remembered for. ~ Isaac Asimov

If you think that those who are left, with
practically no knowledge of the elements of science, or worse, still, with the distorted
knowledge the priests receive, can penetrate at a bound to nuclear power, to electronics, to the
theory of the hyperwarp – you have a very romantic and very foolish idea of science. It takes lifetimes of training and an excellent brain to get that far. ~ Isaac Asimov

This young woman," said Diana, "was responsible for the destruction of the Triumvirate's fleet."
"Well, I had a lot of help," Lavinia said.
"I don't understand," I said, turning to Lavinia. "You made all those mortars malfunction?"
Lavinia looked offended. "Well, yeah. Somebody had to stop the fleet. I did pay attention during siege-weapon class and ship-boarding class. It wasn't that hard. All it took was a little fancy footwork."
Hazel finally managed to pick her jaw off the pavement. "Wasn't that hard?"
"We were motivated! The fauns and dryads did great." She paused, her expression momentarily clouding, as if she remembered something unpleasant. "Um…besides, the Nereids helped a lot. There was only a skeleton crew aboard each yacht. Not, like, actual skeletons, but - you know what I mean. Also, look!"
She pointed proudly at her feet, which were now adorned with the shoes of Terpsichore from Caligula's private collection.
"You mounted an amphibious assault on an enemy fleet," I said, "for a pair of shoes."
Lavinia huffed. "Not just for the shoes, obviously." She tap-danced a routine that would've made Savion Glover proud. "Also to save the camp, and the nature spirits, and Michael Kahale's commandos."
Hazel held up her hands to stop the overflow of information. "Wait. Not to be a killjoy - I mean, you did an amazing thing! - but you still deserted your post, Lavinia. I certainly didn't give you permission - "
"I was acting ~ Rick Riordan

The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. ~ Isaac Asimov

Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task
such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping
I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something. ~ Isaac Asimov

And so it happened, that when others bent their knee, he refused and added loudly that his ancestors in their time bowed no knee to any stinking mayor. And in his ancestors' time the mayor was elected anyhow, and kicked out at will, and that the only people that inherited anything by right of birth were the congenital idiots. ~ Isaac Asimov

I still can't quite grasp what you are telling me. I find it impossible to believe that there would be such unreasoning feeling against harmless people."
Amaryl said bitterly, "That's because you've never had any occasion to interest yourself in such things. It can all pass right under your nose and you wouldn't smell a thing because it doesn't affect you."
Dors said, "Mr. Amaryl, Dr. Seldon is a mathematician like you and his head can sometimes be in the clouds. You must understand that. I am a historian, however. I know that it isn't unusual to have one group of people look down upon another group. There are peculiar and almost ritualistic hatreds that have no rational justification and that can have their serious historical influence. It's too bad."
Saying something is 'too bad' is easy. You say you disapprove, which makes you a nice person, and then you can go about your own business and not be interested anymore. It's a lot worse than 'too bad.' It's against everything decent and natural. We're all of us the same, yellow-hairs and black-hairs, tall and short, Easterners, Westerners, Southerners, and Outworlders. We're all of us, you and I and even the Emperor, descended from the people of Earth, aren't we? ~ Isaac Asimov

He didn't believe that, surely." "Of course not! But he had to pretend he did, as otherwise he would have had no choice but to be insulted. And since there would be nothing he could do about that, being insulted would only lead to humiliation. And since he didn't want that, the simplest path to follow was to believe what I said. ~ Isaac Asimov

Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers. ~ Isaac Asimov

It is the essence of a good title, in my opinion, that it means more after you have completed the story than before you started it. If that is not true, then either the title or the story, or both, is trivial. ~ Isaac Asimov

It is the invariable lesson to humanity that distance in time, and in space as well, lends focus. ~ Isaac Asimov

Aimless extension of knowledge, however, which is what I think you really mean by the term curiosity, is merely inefficiency. I am designed to avoid inefficiency. ~ Isaac Asimov

Hardin, as he sat at the foot of the table, speculated idly as to just what it was that made physical scientists such poor administrators. It might be merely that they were too used to inflexible fact and far too unused to pliable people. ~ Isaac Asimov

Any decent politician is masochistic enough to dream now and then of going down in flames while the angels sing. ~ Isaac Asimov

And one day he said, "I'm going to see Hallam again."
Bronowski's eyebrows lifted. "What for?"
"To have him turn me down."
"Yes, that's about your speed, Pete. You're unhappy if your troubles die down a bit. ~ Isaac Asimov

Life originated in the sea, and about eighty percent of it is still there. ~ Isaac Asimov

Since I do not believe in so many things, it is not difficult for me to disbelieve in the Fall as well, so that I am entirely convinced I will be telling the truth to the people. ~ Isaac Asimov

Meaning well is a poor defense, ~ Isaac Asimov

There is no Master but the Master," he said, "and QT-1 is his prophet. ~ Isaac Asimov

No one is so modest as not to believe himself a competent amateur sleuth ... ~ Isaac Asimov

Kill us in the clear light on the Moon, where the sky is black and soft, where the stars shine brightly, where the cleanliness and purity of vacuum make all things sharp.

- Not in this low-clinging, fuzzy blue. ~ Isaac Asimov