Исаáк Азимов
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Awards
Isaac Asimov wrote or edited over 500 books, including the Foundation series and I, Robot, which introduced the Three Laws of Robotics. He won multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards and coined the word robotics in 1941. Asimov was also a professor of biochemistry at Boston University.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Isaac Asimov — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Isaac Asimov by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Isaac Asimov — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Isaac Asimov’s family immigrated from Petrovichi, Russia, to the United States in 1923. They settled in Brooklyn, New York, where his parents ran a general store. Asimov, born Isaak Judah Ozimov on January 2, 1920, taught himself to read before age five and discovered science fiction magazines in the store.
He graduated from Boys High School in 1935. He earned a B.S. in 1939 and an M.Sc. in 1941 from Columbia University, and completed his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1948, also at Columbia.
Asimov’s first published story, Marooned Off Vesta, appeared in Amazing Stories in 1939. He achieved fame with Nightfall in 1941. He created the Foundation series, which won the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966, and the Robot series, including I, Robot, which introduced the Three Laws of Robotics.
Asimov also wrote extensively on science, history, and other topics, producing over 500 books. He taught at Boston University’s Medical School from 1949, becoming an associate professor in 1955, and left teaching in 1958 to write full-time. He returned as a lecturer and was promoted to full professor in 1979.
Asimov married Gertrude Blugerman on July 26, 1942, after meeting her on a blind date on Valentine’s Day. The couple had two children: David born 1951 and Robyn Joan born 1955. They separated in 1970 and divorced in 1973. In 1973, he married Janet Jeppson, a psychoanalyst and science fiction writer whom he had known since 1959. They remained together until his death.
Asimov struggled with many phobias: he feared needles and the sight of blood, never learned to swim or ride a bicycle, and was terrified of flying. He also disliked travel but enjoyed cruises. He identified as a non-religious humanist and atheist, and he supported feminist and environmental causes.
Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics became a foundational concept in both literature and real-world robotics. He coined the words robotics, positronic, and psychohistory. His Foundation series won the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966, beating J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Asimov was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame and received numerous posthumous honors, including the Great Immigrants Award in 2020.
His legacy includes more than 500 books and enduring influence on the genre.
Browse the complete filmography of Isaac Asimov — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
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Every award, honor, and recognition received by Isaac Asimov — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Isaac Asimov's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
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A wall of memorable lines from Isaac Asimov — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
Someday They’ll Come and Find Me Slumped Over That Electric Typewriter with My Nose in the Keys.
It Has Been My Philosophy of Life That Difficulties Vanish When Faced Boldly.
Intelligence Is an Extremely Subtle Concept. It’s a Kind of Understanding That Flourishes If It’s Combined with a Good Memory, but Exists Anyway Even in the Absence of Good Memory. It’s the Ability to Draw Consequences from Causes, to Make Correct Inferences, to Foresee What Might Be the Result, to Work Out Logical Problems, to Be Reasonable, Rational, to Have the Ability to Understand the Solution from Perhaps Insufficient Information. You Know When a Person Is Intelligent, but You Can Be Easily Fooled If You Are Not Yourself Intelligent.
I Type 90 Words per Minute on the Typewriter; I Type 100 Words per Minute on the Word Processor. But, of Course, I Don’t Keep That up Indefinitely Every Once in a While I Do Have to Think a Few Seconds.
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.
Violence Is the Last Refuge of the Incompetent.
Science Fiction Writers Foresee the Inevitable, and Although Problems and Catastrophes May Be Inevitable, Solutions Are Not.
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.
Things Do Change. the Only Question Is That Since Things Are Deteriorating so Quickly, Will Society and Man’s Habits Change Quickly Enough?
I Do Not Fear Computers. I Fear the Lack of Them.
If Knowledge Can Create Problems, It Is Not Through Ignorance That We Can Solve Them.
Life Is Pleasant. Death Is Peaceful. It’s the Transition That’s Troublesome.
Never Let Your Sense of Morals Get in the Way of Doing What’s Right.
Part of the Inhumanity of the Computer Is That, Once It Is Competently Programmed and Working Smoothly, It Is Completely Honest.
I Write for the Same Reason I Breathe Because If I Didn’t, I Would Die.
If the Doctor Told Me I Had Six Minutes to Live, I’d Type a Little Faster.
Nothing Interferes with My Concentration. You Could Put on an Orgy in My Office and I Wouldn’t Look Up. Well, Maybe Once.
The Saddest Aspect of Life Right Now Is That Science Gathers Knowledge Faster Than Society Gathers Wisdom.
There Is a Single Light of Science, and to Brighten It Anywhere Is to Brighten It Everywhere.
Those People Who Think They Know Everything Are a Great Annoyance to Those of Us Who Do.
To Insult Someone We Call Him Bestial. for Deliberate Cruelty and Nature, Human Might Be the Greater Insult.
I Don’t Have a Modest Bone in My Body.
To All My Gentle Readers Who Have Treated Me with Love for Over 30 Years, I Must Say Farewell. It Has Always Been My Ambition to Die in Harness with My Head Face Down on a Keyboard and My Nose Caught Between Two of the Keys, but That’s Not the Way It Worked Out. I Have Had a Long and Happy Life and I Have No Complaints About the Ending, Thereof, and so Farewell Farewell.
There Is a Cult of Ignorance in the United States, and There Always Has Been. the Strain of Anti Intellectualism Has Been a Constant Thread Winding Its Way Through Our Political and Cultural Life, Nurtured by the False Notion That Democracy Means That My Ignorance Is Just as Good as Your Knowledge.
WASPS Are Known for Their Sangfroid and Coolness Under Pressure. for That Reason, the Following Story Should Be Read with a British Accent….
You Can’t Argue with a Cop Intent on Fulfilling His Ticketing Quota.
It Is Not Only the Living Who Are Killed in Wars.
Above the Entrance to the Temple of Science It Is Written: You Must Have Faith.
Little-known facts about Isaac Asimov — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
Asimov’s Foundation series won the Hugo Award for Best All-Time Series in 1966, beating J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
He is the only author to have published a book in every Dewey Decimal category except Philosophy.
He created the Three Laws of Robotics.
His wife Janet Jeppson Asimov revealed after his death that Asimov contracted HIV from a blood transfusion during a 1983 bypass surgery. He kept it silent on doctors’ advice. The immediate cause of death was kidney and heart failure.
He had a friendly rivalry with fellow sci-fi author Arthur C. Clarke.
Asimov was afraid of air travel and generally disliked traveling.
He attributed his ability to write widely to an excellent memory, though he said it was not photographic and he often forgot visual details.
He enjoyed confined spaces and preferred to work in windowless rooms.
His family immigrated to the US in 1923, the last possible year before restrictions tightened.
He produced about 500 books as author or editor; the exact number is unknown.
With his first wife Gertrude, he had two children: David and Robyn.
He won the Hugo and Nebula awards and received many honorary doctorates.
He was a member of Mensa.
His brother Stanley Asimov was a journalist and vice-president at Newsday.
He was the first science-fiction writer to have a magazine named after him.
His mother changed his birthdate to September 7, 1919 to start school earlier; he later corrected it to January 2, 1920.
No accurate birth records exist; the date might be as early as October 4, 1919.
His IMDb ID is 0001920, matching his birth year.
He was Guest of Honor at Fan Fair II in Toronto in 1970.
He drank alcohol only occasionally.
He did not speak Russian.
His biography appears in The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives.
He was born in 1920, labeled 0001920 on IMDb.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Isaac Asimov.
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