American author & professor of biochemistry (1920-1992)
The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Second Foundation
The closer to the truth, the better the lie, and the truth itself, when it can be used, is the best lie.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation's Edge
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
To any who know the star field well from one certain reference point, stars are as individual as people. Jump ten parsecs, however, and not even your own sun is recognizable.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Second Foundation
Galleys or "proofs," for those of you who don't know, are long sheets on which the contents of a book are printed, usually two and a half pages or so to each galley sheet. The writer is supposed to read over them carefully, trying to catch all the typos made by the printer and all the infelicities made by himself. Such "proofreading" and corrections are meant to ensure that the final book will be free of errors. I suspect that most writers find galleys a pain, but I like them. They give me a chance to read my own writing. The problem is that I'm not a good proofreader, because I read too quickly. I read by "gestalt," a phrase at a time. If there is a wrong letter, a displaced letter, a missing letter, an excessive letter, I don't notice it. The small error is lost in the general correctness of the phrase. I have to force myself to look at each word, each letter separately, but if I relax for one moment I start racing ahead again.
ISAAC ASIMOV
I, Asimov
Boasts are wind and deeds are hard.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation and Empire
What is really amazing, and frustrating, is mankind's habit of refusing to see the obvious and inevitable until it is there, and then muttering about unforeseen catastrophes.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Asimov on Science Fiction
The spell of power never quite releases its hold.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Second Foundation
It is almost impossible to think of something no one has thought of before, but it is always possible to add different frills.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Yours, Isaac Asimov
No matter how carefully records are kept and filed and computerized, they grow fuzzy with time. Stories grow by accretion. Tales accumulate--like dust. The longer the time lapse, the dustier the history--until it degenerates into fables.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation's Edge
Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation
There is no one so insufferable as a person who gives no other excuse for a peculiar action than saying he had been directed to it in a dream.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation's Edge
I made up my mind long ago to follow one cardinal rule in all my writing -- to be clear. I have given up all thought of writing poetically or symbolically or experimentally, or in any of the other modes that might (if I were good enough) get me a Pulitzer prize. I would write merely clearly and in this way establish a warm relationship between myself and my readers, and the professional critics -- Well, they can do whatever they wish.
ISAAC ASIMOV
introduction, Nemesis
Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Opus 200
Past glories are poor feeding.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Foundation