Isaac Asimov was a true TBBT-like nerd when it comes to his dating life
Quote:Believe me, I'm an acrophobe. I first became truly aware of it the very first time I put it to a true test. When I visited the New York World's Fair in 1939, with my chem-lab ladylove, it occurred to me to ride on a roller coaster. From what I had seen of it in movies, it seemed to me that my date would scream and would cling to me, something which, I thought, would be delightful.
The instant the roller coaster topped the first and highest rise and began to swoop downward, I reacted like an acrophobe. I screamed in terror and I hung on desperately to my date, who sat there stolid and unmoved. I got out of the roller coaster half dead, and if I had been older and had had a less youthful heart, I am certain it would have killed me.
Quote:After I married I had a week's honeymoon in Allaben Acres in the Catskills. There I managed to demonstrate my intelligence to Gertrude when I volunteered to take part in a quiz contest and assured her I would win. She sat on the balcony all by herself to avoid having everyone see her embarrassment when I failed, but, of course, I won. I gained the hostility of many of the people at the resort because when I stood up to answer questions—very anxious lest I humiliate Gertrude—the anxiety on my face was interpreted as stupidity and everyone laughed. (They didn't laugh at anyone else.) When I won they seemed to take the attitude that I had no right to look stupid and mislead them.
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"