Isaac Asimov Quotes About Writing

Quotes about: Writing

• It's the writing that teaches you.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Teach

• Congratulations on the new library, because it isn't just a library. It is a space ship that will take you to the farthest reaches of the Universe, a time machine that will take you to the far past and the far future, a teacher that knows more than any human being, a friend that will amuse you and console you-and most of all, a gateway, to a better and happier and more useful life.

  Isaac Asimov

  Teacher, Congratulations, Writing

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

  Isaac Asimov

  Life, Writing, Doctors

  Life (1984)

• 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

  Work, Writing, Persistence

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

  Isaac Asimov

  Life, Writing, Breathe

  Isaac Asimov (1995). “Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters”, Doubleday Books

• Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Thinking, Fingers

• It is the writer who might catch the imagination of young people, and plant a seed that will flower and come to fruition.

  Isaac Asimov

  Flower, Writing, Imagination

  Isaac Asimov (1987). “Past, Present, and Future”

• Whenever I have endured or accomplished some difficult task -- such as watching television, going out socially or sleeping -- I always look forward to rewarding myself with the small pleasure of getting back to my typewriter and writing something.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Sleep, Typewriters

• Science fiction writers foresee the inevitable, and although problems and catastrophes may be inevitable, solutions are not.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Science, Fiction

  1975 'How Easy To See The Future', in Natural History, Apr.

• 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

  Writing, Long Ago, Mind

  "Nemesis". Book by Isaac Asimov. Introduction, 1989.

• From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review.

  Isaac Asimov

  Funny, Fall, Writing

  Isaac Asimov (1995). “Gold: the final science fiction collection”, Harper Prism

• No one suggests that writing about science will turn the entire world into a model of judgment and creative thought. It will be enough if they spread the knowledge as widely as possible.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Creative, World

• The first step in making rabbit stew is catching the rabbit.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Rabbits, Firsts

• 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.

  Isaac Asimov

  Jobs, Laughter, Pain

• Rejection slips, or form letters, however tactfully phrased, are lacerations of the soul, if not quite inventions of the devil-but there is no way around them.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Rejection, Soul

• I have never written a book that didn't teach me far more than it taught my reader.

  Isaac Asimov

  Book, Writing, Taught

• Until I became a published writer, I remained completely ignorant of books on how to write and courses on the subject ... they would have spoiled my natural style; made me observe caution; would have hedged me with rules.

  Isaac Asimov

  Book, Writing, Ignorance

• We mythologists know very well that myths and legends contain borrowings, moral lessons, nature cycles, and a hundred other distorting influences, and we labor to cut them away and get to what might be a kernel of truth. In fact, these same techniques must be applied to the most sober histories, for no one writes the clear and apparent truth-if such a thing can even be said to exist.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Cutting, Lessons

  Isaac Asimov (2012). “Foundation and Earth”, p.379, Spectra

• Thinking is the activity I love best, and writing to me is simply thinking through my fingers. I can write up to 18 hours a day. Typing 90 words a minute, I've done better than 50 pages a day. Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up-well, maybe once.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Science, Love Is

• Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Essence, Fiction Stories

  "My Own View". "The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction". Book edited by Robert Holdstock, 1978.

• When I feel difficulty coming on, I switch to another book I'm writing. When I get back to the problem, my unconscious has solved it.

  Isaac Asimov

  Book, Writing, Problem

• The Bible contains legendary, historical, and ethical contents. It is quite possible to consider them separately, and one doesn't have to accept the legends in order to get the ethics. Fundamentalists make a grave mistake to insist on the letter of the writings, because they drive away many who can't swallow the Adam-and-Eve bit.

  Isaac Asimov

  Mistake, Writing, Order

  Isaac Asimov (1995). “Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters”, Doubleday Books

• 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.

  Isaac Asimov

  Book, Writing, Law

  Isaac Asimov (1995). “Yours, Isaac Asimov: A Lifetime of Letters”, Doubleday Books

• Writing is a lonely job. Even if a writer socializes regularly, when he gets down to the real business of his life, it is he and his type writer or word processor. No one else is or can be involved in the matter.

  Isaac Asimov

  Lonely, Jobs, Real

  Isaac Asimov (2009). “I, Asimov: A Memoir”, p.134, Bantam

• Unfortunately, in many cases, people who write science fiction violate the laws of nature, not because they want to make a point, but because they don't know what the laws of nature are.

  Isaac Asimov

  Writing, Knowledge, Science

  Isaac Asimov, Carl Howard Freedman (2005). “Conversations with Isaac Asimov”, p.176, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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