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| I have been told that a young would-be composer wrote to Mozart asking advice as to how to compose a symphony. Mozart responded that a symphony was a complex and demanding form and that it would be better to start with something simpler. The young man protested, 'But Herr Mozart, you wrote symphonies when you were younger than I am now.' And Mozart replied, 'I never asked how.' |
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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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| I sit here and think, with more than a little astonishment, that I have been writing and publishing Science Fiction now for just three-eighths of a century. This isn't bad for someone who only admits to being in his late youth- or a little over thirty, if pinned down. |
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| I write for the same reason I breathe - because if I didn't, I would die. |
| Reason |
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| If I am right, then [religious fundamentalists] will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If THEY are right, then they will not go to Heaven, because they are hypocrites. |
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| If I could trace my origins to Judas Maccabaeus or King David, that would not add one inch to my stature. It may well be that many East European Jews are descended from Khazars, I may be one of them. Who knows? And who cares? |
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| If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul. |
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| If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. |
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| If the doctor told me I had six minutes to live, I'd type a little faster. |
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| In 1936, I first wrote science fiction. It was a long-winded attempt at writing an endless novel...which died. I remember one sentence, "Whole forests stood sere and brown in midsummer". |
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| In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate |
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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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| It has been my philosophy of life that difficulties vanish when faced boldly |
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| It is a curious fact that innumerable readers have asked me if I wrote this story. They seem never to remember the title of the story or (for sure) the author, except for the vague thought it might be me. But, of course, they never forget the story itself, especially the ending. The idea seems to drown out everything else - and I'm satisfied that it should. |
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| 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. |
| Change |
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| It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety. |
| Reputation |
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| It seems to me that God is a convenient invention of the human mind |
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| It takes more than capital to swing business. You've got to have the A. I. D. degree to get by - Advertising, Initiative, and Dynamics. |
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| It's not so much what you have to learn if you accept weird theories, it's what you have to unlearn |
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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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