In Joy Still Felt: The Autobiography of Isaac Asimov (1954-1978)

"As I sit here in my office I look up at a photograph of Isaac on the wall, and in the room next door there is Isaac Asimov’s library, about 4,000 books on science and pseudoscience. He was a very good friend and dearly missed. In Joy Still Felt is a joyous book, as its title suggests, and Isaac was a joyous person. He was very fond of writing about himself. That may seem a bit egotistical, but then again he had every right to it – it was his life. This book shows his enthusiasm, his celebration of his own life. He was very happy with his life, even if he had strange turns of mind sometimes. For example, he was deadly afraid of flying. He knew it was a very safe way to travel, but anytime he got near an aircraft he felt that if he were to get on it, it would certainly fall to the ground. He had no reason to believe that, but this was one of his failings of logic and rationality. His wife has a whole closet of unpublished manuscripts by Isaac. An ambition of mine is to see that they get published. We would be much the poorer for not seeing everything that Isaac wrote. He once told me that he never had a good idea that he didn’t write down – and that’s a very pregnant statement right there. I think it’s very permissible to invent fantasies, so long as it’s sold as fiction. Isaac was very clear about that, and he never tried to fool anyone that he believed what he wrote as science fiction. Fiction is fiction, and it’s enjoyable. I myself am a great fan of fantasy and science fiction in general. I have a large collection of books by everyone from Ray Bradbury to George O Smith and all the rest of them. But I close these books knowing they are fiction , and I celebrate that fact."