Isaac Asimov

I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die.

[A]ll knowledge is one. When a light brightens and illuminates a corner of a room, it adds to the general illumination of the entire room. Over and over again, scientific discoveries have provided answers to problems that had no apparent connection with the phenomena that gave rise to the discovery.

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.

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.

What lasts in the reader's mind is not the phrase but the effect the phrase created: laughter, tears, pain, joy. If the phrase is not affecting the reader, what's it doing there? Make it do its job or cut it without mercy or remorse.

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.

I don't believe in personal immortality; the only way I expect to have some version of such a thing is through my books.

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

If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster.

There is a single light of science, and to brighten it anywhere is to brighten it everywhere.

Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

I want to be a human being, nothing more and nothing less. ... I don't suppose we can ever stop hating each other, but why encourage that by keeping the old labels with their ready-made history of millennial hate?

Any book worth banning is a book worth reading.

The true artist is quite rational as well as imaginative and knows what he is doing; if he does not, his art suffers.

Surely no child, and few adults, have ever watched a bird in flight without envy.

The greatest weapons in the conquest of knowledge are an understanding mind and the inexorable curiosity that drives it on.

There is nothing frightening about an eternal dreamless sleep. Surely it is better than eternal torment in Hell and eternal boredom in Heaven.

I don’t believe in extraordinary concatenations of coincidence.

There is no belief, however foolish, that will not gather its faithful adherents who will defend it to the death.

The law of conservation of energy tells us we can't get something for nothing, but we refuse to believe it.