Isaac Asimov Quotes

That's the thing about conspiracy theories: in a comforting sort of way, they give rise to the feeling that someone, somewhere, knows what's going on.

Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.

I realized that we were all sort of conspiring, well, not conspiring against each other, but all this cloak and dagger stuff and I was like; what is this?

Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.

Some say they expect Illuminati take my body to sleep.

Don't worry. They're all against me. But I have one advantage: they don't know what they want. I do.

And always I have this feeling--which may not be true at all--that I am being used as a messenger.

Suspicion is an owl that flies when the light is bad and catches only vermin for food.

Yes, to me that's one of the most compelling fears in film noir and the psychological thriller genre - that fear of conspiracy. It's definitely something that I have a fear of - not being in control of your own life. I think that's something people can relate to, and those genres are most successful when they derive the material from genuine fears that people have.

Faith, to be faith, must center around something that is not known. Faith, to be faith, must go beyond that for which there is confirming evidence. Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness. If everything has to be known, if everything has to be explained, if everything has to be certified, then there is no need for faith. Indeed, there is no room for it.

There is no word or action but may be taken with two hands,--either with the right hand of charitable construction, or the sinister interpretation of malice and suspicion; and all things do succeed as they are taken. To construe an evil, action well is but a pleasing and profitable deceit to myself; but to misconstrue a good thing is a treble wrong,--to myself, the action, and the author.

We always try to interpret things in accordance with what we want and not as they are.

Paranoia is knowing all the facts.

I thought I could start over, you see. But now I know you can never start over. Not really. You think you have control, but you are like a fly in somebody else's web. Sometimes I think that's why I like accounting. All day, you are only dealing with numbers. You add them, multiply them, and if you are careful, you will always have a solution. There's a sequence there. An order. With numbers, you can have control.

I am sending back the key that let me into bluebeard's study; because he would make love to me I am sending back the key; in his eye's darkroom I can see my X-rayed heart, dissected body: I am sending back the key that let me into bluebeard s study.

If we are on the outside, we assume a conspiracy is the perfect working of a scheme. Silent nameless men with unadorned hearts. A conspiracy is everything that ordinary life is not. It's the inside game, cold, sure, undistracted, forever closed off to us. We are the flawed ones, the innocents, trying to make some rough sense of the daily jostle. Conspirators have a logic and a daring beyond our reach. All conspiracies are the same taut story of men who find coherence in some criminal act.

The losing side is full of suspicion.

Fear plants the whisper to beware but doesn't look to see who's there.

Suspicion is like the rain. It falls on the just and on the unjust.

A man can reach into anything and turn it to his cause. It's not want, or desire, just certainty. Only be assured that whatever you reach into will reach into you in turn.

Anyone not paranoid in this world must be crazy. . . . Speaking of paranoia, it's true that I do not know exactly who my enemies are. But that of course is exactly why I'm paranoid.

I write stories about conspiracies and paranoid characters while I am, in fact, a very skeptical person.

I still doubt it will work." "You'd doubt the sun's rising if you weren't proven wrong each day," Raoden said with a smile.

It's an illusion, control," Naomi said. "You ought to understand that by now, young Claire. We are never in control of our destinies, even the strongest of us. All we can hope to do is not be too badly damaged by events.

I remember desperately trying to convince my wife that what I was believing was real - that I was being followed, that I was involved in some type of mind-control experiment. I couldn't understand why she couldn't believe me.