# Quote — Isaac Asimov, I, Asimov

> In writing a science fiction novel, you must invent a futuristic social structure which is complex enough to be interesting in itself apart from the story and which is self-consistent. You must also invent a plot that works only within that social structure. The plot must develop without unduly obscuring the description of the social structure, and the social structure must be described without unduly slowing the plot.
>
> Making a science fiction novel fulfill this double purpose is difficult even for an experienced and talented old hand such as myself. Every other kind of writing is easier than science fiction.

- Author: [Isaac Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov.md)
- Book: [I, Asimov](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov.md)
- Page: 265
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Isaac_Asimov#I._Asimov:_A_Memoir_(1994)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Topics: [literature](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/literature.md), [writing](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/writing.md)
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/in-writing-a-science

## More from this book

> Nor did I learn about sex from any reasoned source of instruction. I learned about it from the distorted and imperfect knowledge of other boys. This is the usual fate enforced upon youngsters by a society that is too prim and too hypocritical to have sex taught like any other branch of knowledge.
>
> Considering how important sex is, how great a source of joy, how enormous a source of misery and disease, how is permeates the workings of courtship and marriage, isn’t it strange that we go to great lengths to teach our children to play football and make no effort whatever to teach them to play sex?

p. 93 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/nor-did-i-learn.md)

Topics: [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md), [hypocrisy](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/hypocrisy.md)

> There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.

p. 421 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/there-are-no-nations.md)

Topics: [politics](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/politics.md), [society](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/society.md)

> Publishers, with their usual bravery, dumbed down their books in order to make money at the expense of leaving American children undereducated or, worse, miseducated.

p. 306 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/isaac-asimov/i-asimov/publishers-with-their.md)

Topics: [knowledge](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/knowledge.md), [money](https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/money.md)