33 quotes
Man proposes and old age disposes—
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
I have always estimated that any but the most trivial connection with Hollywood, however profitable it might seem at the moment, would end in disaster, and I have stayed away from the place. I have never regretted it either.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Hollywood is notorious for “creative bookkeeping.” They can make many, many millions out of a movie but all of it is skimmed off to actors and direction and what is left, the “net profit,” out of which the writers are paid a percentage, usually turns out to be a “net loss.”
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
I don’t expect to live forever, nor do I repine over that, but I am weak enough to want to be remembered forever. —Yet how few of those who have lived, even of those who have accomplished far more than I have, linger on in world memory for even a single century after their death.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Arthur and I share similar views on science fiction, on science, on social questions, and on politics. I have never had occasion to disagree with him on any of these things, which is a credit to his clear-thinking intelligence.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
I resented much modern poetry, because I couldn’t understand it (and, worse yet, there was nothing about it that gave me the urge to try to understand it) and because I despised its freewheeling notions of what a poem should look like.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
To me, however, death is merely death, and a person who was alive is gone, and although sorrow and loneliness may devour you as a result, it should not be put on public display, any more than it must. I realize that this is not a popular view and will not prevail.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
When I was young, all youngsters wore caps.… Now they are gone, all gone. The story I’ve heard was that caps were always worn by the bad guys in the early gangster movies, and the American public, never notable for thinking for themselves, therefore rejected them.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
I have a horror of funerals, not only because I dislike anything unpleasant but also because I detect a tang of hypocrisy to the whole thing. As soon as someone dies, he or she becomes transformed into a miracle of angelic behavior and personality which in life was never true, and everyone puts on an attitude of deep sorrow which, in truth, he or she might not feel.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
I refuse to consider myself to be anything more sharply defined than “human being,” and I feel that aside from overpopulation the most intractable problem we face in trying to avoid the destruction of civilization and humanity is the diabolical habit of people dividing themselves into tiny groups, with each group extolling itself and denouncing its neighbors.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Once when Isaac and I talked about old age, illness, and death, he said it wasn’t so terrible to get sick and old and to die if you’ve been part of life completing itself as a pattern. Even if you don’t make it to old age, it’s still worthwhile, there’s still pleasure in that vision of being part of the pattern of life—especially a pattern expressed in creativity and shared in love.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
Lecturing helps only the students. Research, on the other hand, means government grants, and a portion of the grants is invariably marked for “overhead,” which goes to the school. What it amounts to is that the school chooses research over lecturing every time—money for itself over education for its students.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)
He (Robert A. Heinlein) always pictured himself a libertarian, which to my way of thinking means “I want the liberty to grow rich and you can have the liberty to starve.” It’s easy to believe that no one should depend on society for help when you yourself happen not to need such help.
I. Asimov: A Memoir (1994)