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complained about his eccentricities: his walking home from the library with three books, reading one and holding one under each arm; his love of cemeteries; his constant whistling. Their complaints didn't bother him (though he did, when asked, stop whistling in the cemetery). "I had gathered the notion somewhere that my eccentricities belonged to me and to nobody else and that I had every right to keep them." He added, "And I lived long enough to see these eccentricities and others that I have not mentioned come to be described as `colorful' facets of my personality." |
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He ended up rationalizing everything that had happened to him; he was a rational man who knew that the past cannot be changed, it can only be understood. Moreover, the things that he became were rewarded by the world. He had his many triumphs. Scientists applauded his science books: Professor George G. Simpson of Harvard called him "one of our natural wonders and national resources." He was guest of honor and toastmaster at World Science Fiction Conventions. He won Hugos and Nebulas, was named a Grand Master by his fellow science-fiction writers, and, perhaps best of all, John Campbell told him, "You are one of the greatest science-fiction writers in the world." |
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As a rational man, Asimov knew that the present must be accepted, and as a rational man, he knew that what he was was an excellent thing to be. So the world said, and so he agreed. That life of reason found its expression in his fiction as well as his non-fiction. How it developed and how it expressed itself can be found in the following pages. |
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