1. "A century from now there will be two prime sources of energy - nuclear fusion and solar power collected in space."
2. “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.”
3. “A subtle thought that is in error may yet give rise to fruitful inquiry that can establish truths of great value.”
4. “Before another century is done it will be hard for people to imagine a time when humanity was confined to one world, and it will seem to them incredible that there was ever anybody who doubted the value of space and wanted to turn his or her back on the Universe.”
5. "By my writing, I amuse people and make them happy. My writing style is simple, straightforward, and upbeat - nothing nasty or horrid or violent or perverse. In this sad world, I think that anyone who spreads happiness automatically justifies his existence."
6. ”Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”
7. “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.”
8. "Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition."
9. “I am not a speed reader. I am a speed understander.”
10. “I am the beneficiary of a lucky break in the genetic sweepstakes.”
11. "I am usually amazed (and pleased) at what comes out of the typewriter. Which is why I write so much. I am eager to see what I will say next."
12. “I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them.”
13. “I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”
14. “If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster.”
15. "Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly..."
16. “It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly.”
17. ”It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be... This, in turn, means that our statesmen, our businessmen, our everyman must take on a science fictional way of thinking.”
18. “It is quite possible that mathematics was invented in the ancient Middle East to keep track of tax receipts and grain stores. How odd that out of this should come a subtle scientific language that can effectively describe and predict the most arcane aspects of the Universe.
19. “It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.”
20. "I write in order to teach and in order to make people feel good (for I am wedded to the theory that learning is the most enduring pleasure). It is nice to make money doing so. However, my chief reason for writing is to please myself, because I myself learn by writing. And that is my pleasure, too."
21. “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome.”
22. "Many adults, whether consciously or unconsciously, find it beneath their adult dignity to do anything as childish as read a book, think a thought, or get an idea. Adults are rarely embarrased at having forgotten what little algebra or geography they once learned"
23. “Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right.”
24. "No matter how many times a theory meets its tests successfully, there can be no certainty that it will not be overthrown by the next observation. This, then, is a cornerstone of modern natural philosophy. It makes no claim of attaining ultimate truth. In fact, the phrase 'ultimate truth' becomes meaningless, because there is no way in which enough observations can be made to make truth certain and, therefore, 'ultimate.'"
25. "No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be...."
26. ”Nothing interferes with my concentration. You could put on an orgy in my office and I wouldn't look up. Well, maybe once.”
27. "Of all the branches of literature, science fiction is the most modern. It is the one literary response to the problems peculiar to our own day and no other.....Science fiction is continually lumped under the heading of 'escape literature,' and usually as the most extreme kind, in fact. Yet it does not escape into the 'isn't' as most fiction does, of the 'never was' as fantasy does, but into the 'just possibly might be.' It is an odd form of escape literature that worried its readers with atom bombs, overpopulation, bacterial warfare, trips to the moon, and other such phenomena decades before the rest of the world had to take up the problems. (Would that the rest of the world had listened sooner!) No, no, if science fiction escapes, it is an escape into reality."
28. “Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.”
29. "Self-education is a continuing source of pleasure to me, for the more I know, the fuller my life is and the better I appreciate my own existence"
30. “Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knoweldge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.”
31. ”The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'”
32. "The publications of scientists concerning their individual work have never been so copious - and so unreadable for anyone but their fellow specialists. This has been a great handicap to science itself, for basic advances in scientific knowledge often spring from the cross-fertilization of knowledge from different specialties. Even more ominous, science has increasingly lost touch with nonscientists. Under such circumstances, scientists come to be regarded almost as magicians - feared rather than admired. And the impression that science is incomprehensible magic, to be understood only by a chosen few who are suspiciously different from ordinary mankind, is bound to turn many youngsters away from science."
33. "The rapid advance of science is exciting and exhilarating to anyone who is fascinated by the unconquerability of the human spirit and by the continuing efficacy of the scientific method as a tool for penetrating the complexities of the universe."
34. ”The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
35. "The trouble with writing poetically is that if you hit the target, the result is beautiful; if you miss, it is rotten. Poetic writers are usually uneven. A prosaic writer like me, who consistently misses the heights, also avoids the depths."
36. “Things do change. The only question is that since things are deteriorating so quickly, will society and man's habits change quickly enough?”
37. “Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.”
38. "Through all of history, an increased understanding of the Universe, however out-of-the-way a particular bit of new understanding may seem....has always ended in some practical application....The wisdom of mankind will never improve the material lot of man unless advancing knowledge presents it with the matters over which it can make those decisions. And when, despite the most careful decisions, there come dangerous side effects of the new knowledge - it is only still further advances in knowledge that will offer hope for correction."
39. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."
40. "You may have heard the statement: 'One picture is worth a thousand words.' Don't you believe it. It may be true on occasion - as when someone is illiterate, or when you are trying to describe the physical appearance of a complex object. In other cases, the statement is nonsense....As soon as it becomes necessary to deal with emotions, ideas, fancies - abstractions in general - only words will suit....Nor is this likely to change in the future. You have heard that we live in an 'age of communication,'....(but) these changes....involve the transmission of information, and not its nature."
