[Ads-l] Quote About Asimov

[Shapiro, Fred]

Thanks for pointing this out, Garson!  Just as Asimov or Silverberg published so many books they probably forgot about some of them, I send so many quotation queries that I forget about some of them.


Fred

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
Sent: Monday, January 2, 2017 1:45 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: Quote About Asimov

There was a long discussion thread on this topic on the Wombats list
back in April 2014. The subject line was: "Quote About Isaac Asimov
(Quotation Query #701)". Several interesting citations were located.
(I participated.):

https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.project-2Dwombat.org_pipermail_project-2Dwombat-2Dproject-2Dwombat.org_2014-2DApril_011014.html&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=sRkhHMQo6W5Ird1lkQFqb23bCfSHAR2XjUSUG53db5M&m=0IERPG2W9Gfvh2i05t-HxIjkfRPsmfM53ctah-eV0NQ&s=c7qDNJbABQR9A0d3LS0HiuH1dqEOeyg9Z59uCoze_nY&e=

Garson


On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 1:18 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> There is a great quote about Isaac Asimov, which Wikiquote presents as follows:
>
>   *   He had writer's block once. It was the worst ten minutes of his life.
>      *   Attributed to Harlan Ellison<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikiquote.org_wiki_Harlan-5FEllison&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=sRkhHMQo6W5Ird1lkQFqb23bCfSHAR2XjUSUG53db5M&m=0IERPG2W9Gfvh2i05t-HxIjkfRPsmfM53ctah-eV0NQ&s=QD-qNUW8JLAvRgL0ICEg_850ZTgLmygRws5X5CTUBv0&e= >, quoted in Page Fright : Foibles and Fetishes of Famous Writers (2009) by Harry Bruce
>      *   Variant: Most writers hate to write, and will grasp any excuse to do something else ... There are exceptions. Isaac Asimov actually was never happier than sitting at a keyboard - first, his old typewriter; then, the TRS-80<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikipedia.org_wiki_TRS-2D80&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=sRkhHMQo6W5Ird1lkQFqb23bCfSHAR2XjUSUG53db5M&m=0IERPG2W9Gfvh2i05t-HxIjkfRPsmfM53ctah-eV0NQ&s=jsclR5oVogGUl3JY2Nd_TseRvgSd6O7QrwI8UcCMU-A&e= >; and later, a more conventional PC. But then, Isaac was unusual, and his experience with writer's block was the worst 10 minutes of his life.
>         *   Jerry Pournelle<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__en.wikiquote.org_wiki_Jerry-5FPournelle&d=CwIFaQ&c=-dg2m7zWuuDZ0MUcV7Sdqw&r=sRkhHMQo6W5Ird1lkQFqb23bCfSHAR2XjUSUG53db5M&m=0IERPG2W9Gfvh2i05t-HxIjkfRPsmfM53ctah-eV0NQ&s=0N-PWvE--1VkN82TbyZIq38Zo5PoTjTginvm2P3bKyg&e= >, in "Chaos Manor: Is there an Upgrade in your future?" in Dr. Dobb's Journal : Software Tools For The Professional Programmer (2005), Vol. 30, Issues 374-379, p. 9
>
> Can anyone point me to earlier evidence for this witticism?
>
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
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