They had not yet attained the stupefying boredom of omnipotence; their experiments did not always succeed.

Across the gulf of centuries, the blind smile of Homer is turned upon our age. Along the echoing corridors of time, the roar of the rockets merges now with the creak of the wind-taut rigging. For somewhere in the world today, still unconscious of his destiny, walks the boy who will be the first Odysseus of the Age of Space.

There is no reason to assume that the universe has the slightest interest in intelligence—or even in life. Both may be random accidental by-products of its operations like the beautiful patterns on a butterfly's wings. The insect would fly just as well without them.

I've been saying for a long time that I'm hoping to find intelligent life in Washington.

Isaac Asimov is, in reality, based on something I had invented a few years previously.

If I didn't exist, I would have invented myself.

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.