American author & professor of biochemistry (1920-1992)
When asked for advice by beginners. Know your ending, I say, or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Asimov: A Memoir
Why ... did so many people spend their lives not trying to find answers to questions -- not even thinking of questions to begin with? Was there anything more exciting in life than seeking answers?
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
You can prove anything you want by coldly logical reason---if you pick the proper postulates.
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Robot
To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation
There was this superstitious fear on the part of the pygmies of the present for the relics of the giants of the past.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Second Foundation
Courtiers don't take wagers against the king's skill. There is the deadly danger of winning.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation
It was obvious that bigotry was never a one-way operation, that hatred bred hatred.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Pebble in the Sky
To be perfectly honest with you, I don't really see what the big deal is about getting to the Moon with the computers and the mid-course-corrections. I know you are a bunch of engineers, and you know better than I do, but I ask you ... once you get there beyond the atmosphere, do you or do you not see the Moon?
ISAAC ASIMOV
lecture at Newark College of Engineering, Nov. 8, 1974
Custom is second nature. Be accustomed to a bald head, sufficiently accustomed, and hair on it would seem monstrous.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
There's no merit in discipline under ideal circumstances. I'll have it in the face of death, or it's useless.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation
Anything you make forbidden gains sexual attractiveness. Would you be particularly interested in women's breasts if you lived in a society in which they were displayed at all times?
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
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
attributed, How to Become a Famous Writer Before You're Dead
They won't listen. Do you know why? Because they have certain fixed notions about the past. Any change would be blasphemy in their eyes, even if it were the truth. They don't want the truth; they want their traditions.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Pebble in the Sky
Love life seems to be that factor which requires the largest quantity of magical tinkering.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation and Empire
Considering what human beings do and have done to human beings (and to other living things as well) ... I can never imagine what the devil people think computers can add to the horrors.
ISAAC ASIMOV
The Beginning and the End
Postulates are based on assumption and adhered to by faith. Nothing in the Universe can shake them.
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Robot
The tyranny that now exists is actual. That which may exist in the future is potential. If we are always to draw back from change with the thought that the change may be for the worse, then there is no hope at all of ever escaping injustice.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Prelude to Foundation
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation
Human beings thought with their hands. It was their hands that were the answer of curiosity, that felt and pinched and turned and lifted and hefted. There were animals that had brains of respectable size, but they had no hands and that made all the difference.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation's Edge
There are many aspects of the universe that still cannot be explained satisfactorily by science; but ignorance only implies ignorance that may someday be conquered. To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today.
ISAAC ASIMOV
"The Threat of Creationism", New York Times Magazine, Jun. 14, 1981