Isaac Asimov

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.”

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.

The greatest single problem facing humanity today is the multiplicity of people. No environmental problem can possibly be solved till the population is stabilized and brought under control. Under these circumstances, it would seem that any young couple who were indifferent to children and showed no disposition to add to Earth’s burden ought to be encouraged and made much of.

The truth, however, is quite the contrary. The world would not let us be childless. People who met us invariably asked if we had children, and when we said we didn’t, they would look at us with disapproval or with sorrow.

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.

Tritt listened placidly, clearly understanding nothing, but content to be listening; while Odeen, transmitting nothing, was as clearly content to be lecturing.

You know that prudery is only the other side of prurience. The words are even on the same page in the dictionary.

Why is it, I wonder, that anyone who displays superior athletic ability is an object of admiration to his classmates, while one who displays superior mental ability is an object of hatred? Is there some hidden understanding that it is brains, not muscles, that define the human being and that children who are not good at athletics are simply not good, while those who are not smart feel themselves to be subhuman? I don’t know.

There are no happy endings in history, only crisis points that pass.

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 know nothing of that directly; I only know what I have been told by other young ones who couldn't have known directly either. I want to find out the truth about them and the wanting has grown until there is more of curiosity in me than fear.

Confidence is rewarded, apparently. There was a homewhen proverb that went, "Grip the nettle firmly and it will become a stick with which to beat your enemy."

I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough. My real education, the superstructure, the details, the true architecture, I got out of the public library. For an impoverished child whose family could not afford to buy books, the library was the open door to wonder and achievement, and I can never be sufficiently grateful that I had the wit to charge through that door and make the most of it.

Now, when I read constantly about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that the door is closing and that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.