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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

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Isaac Asimov
Age: 72 †
Born: 1920
Born: January 2
Died: 1992
Died: April 6
Author
Autobiographer
Biochemist
Journalist
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Prosaist
Science Fiction Writer
Science Writer
Scientist
Isaak Osimov
Paul French
Asimov
Isaak Ozimov
Make
Effects
Phrases
Joy
Mercy
Lasts
Effect
Pain
Laughter
Jobs
Created
Without
Tears
Affecting
Writing
Reader
Remorse
Mind
Cutting
Phrase

More quotes by Isaac Asimov

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Any planet is 'Earth' to those that live on it.
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To succeed, planning alone is insufficient. One must improvise as well.
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It is change continuing change, inevitable change that is the dominant factor in society today.
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When, however, the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists and supports that idea with great fervor and emotion - the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, probably right.
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God, how that stings! I've spent a lifetime loving science fiction and now I find that you must expect nothing of something that's just science fiction.
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It is always useful, you see, to subject the past life of reform politicians to rather inquisitive research.
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When I sit down at the typewriter, I write. Someone once asked me if I had a fixed routine before I start, like setting up exercises, sharpening pencils, or having a drink of orange juice. I said, No, the only thing I do before I start writing is to make sure that I'm close enough to the typewriter to reach the keys.
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Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance. To me, it always seemed that the solution had to be wisdom. You did not refuse to look at danger, rather you learned how to handle it safely.
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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.
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Society is much more easily soothed than one's own conscience.
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The intelligent man is never bored.
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They don't want equal time - they want all the time there is.
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Computerization eliminates the middleman
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I want to be a human being, nothing more and nothing less. ... I don't suppose we can ever stop hating each other, but why encourage that by keeping the old labels with their ready-made history of millennial hate?
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Happiness is doing it rotten your own way.
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Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance.
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I prefer rationalism to atheism. The question of God and other objects-of-faith are outside reason and play no part in rationalism, thus you don't have to waste your time in either attacking or defending.
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And in man is a three-pound brain which, as far as we know, is the most complex and orderly arrangement of matter in the universe.
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John Dalton's records, carefully preserved for a century, were destroyed during the World War II bombing of Manchester. It is not only the living who are killed in war.
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This idea [standardized time zones] was first advanced and fought for by Sandford Fleming of Canada and Charles F. Dowd of the United States. I mention them chiefly because like so many benefactors of mankind they have been rewarded by total obscurity.
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