Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimovwas an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He was known for his works of science fiction and popular science. Asimov was prolific and wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. His books have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth2 January 1920
CityPetrovichi, Russia
CountryUnited States of America
All sorts of computer errors are now turning up. You'd be surprised to know the number of doctors who claim they are treating pregnant men.
On Earth, we are unmanned by our longing for a pastoral past that never really existed; and that, if it had existed, could never exist again...on the Moon, there is no past to long for or dream about. There is no direction but forward.
Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.
When I sit down at the typewriter, I write. Someone once asked me if I had a fixed routine before I start, like setting up exercises, sharpening pencils, or having a drink of orange juice. I said, "No, the only thing I do before I start writing is to make sure that I'm close enough to the typewriter to reach the keys."
We are all victimized by the natural perversity of inanimate objects...and the assorted human beings who perpetuate and maintain this perversity.
Arthur Clarke says that I am first in science and second in science fiction in accordance with an agreement we have made. I say he is first in science fiction and second in science.
I am all for cultural diversity and would be willing to see each recognizable group value its cultural heritage. I am a New York patriot, for instance, and if I lived in Los Angeles, I would love to get together with other New York expatriates and sing "Give My Regards to Broadway".
I type 90 words per minute on the typewriter; I type 100 words per minute on the word processor. But, of course, I don't keep that up indefinitely - every once in a while I do have to think a few seconds.
It has always been my ambition to die in harness with my head face down on a keyboard and my nose caught between two of the keys.
Never judge your own writing. You're not fit to do so.
That's the harm of Close Encounters: that it convinces tens of millions that that's what just science fiction is.
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.
And [Asimov]'ll sign anything, hardbacks, softbacks, other people's books, scraps of paper. Inevitably someone handed him a blank check on the occasion when I was there, and he signed that without as much as a waver to his smile — except that he signed: 'Harlan Ellison.
All humanity could share a common insanity and be immersed in a common illusion while living in a common chaos. That can't be disproved, but we have no choice but to follow our senses.