Quotes from Ray Bradbury

Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what the books have to say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.

We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought.

Que el mundo arda a través de uno mismo.

Those who don't build must burn. It's as old as history and juvenile delinquents.

Have you ever heard of rubbing dandelions under your chin? If it rubs off that means you're in love.

My cowardice is such of passion, complimenting the revolutionary spirit that lives in its shadow.

And we lived in a world that was evil. A world that was like a great black ship pulling away from the shore of sanity and civilization, roaring its black horn in the night, taking two billion people with it, whether they wanted to go or not, to death, to fall over the edge of the earth and the sea into radioactive flame and madness.

A young reader finding this book today, or the day after tomorrow, is going to have to imagine first a past, and then a future that belongs to that past.

I think I begin to see where everything fell apart. The books I read, jetsam to you. Junk. Why didn't we realize that ten years back? Lots of things you don't notice when you're- he slowed- in love.

And right now he and Douglas were hiking out beyond town on another warm and marble-round day, the sky blue blown-glass reaching high, the creeks bright with mirror waters fanning over white stones. It was a day as perfect as the flame of a candle.

The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are. They're Caesar's praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, `Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.

But that's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and worth the doing.

Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. —Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine or library.

For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on.

Treasure this day, and treasure yourself. Truly, neither will ever happen again.

And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again

Death was his little sister one morning when he awoke at the age of seven, looked into her crib, and saw her staring up at him with a blind, blue, fixed and frozen stare until the men came with a small wicker basket to take her away. Death was when he stood by her high chair four weeks later and suddenly realized she'd never be in it again, laughing and crying and making him jealous of her because she was born. That was death.

She went away, and the fireflies, on their electric circuits, fluttered after her like an errant constellation, showing her how to walk in darkness. I heard her say, faintly, We've got to try, anyway.

The Lord is not serious. In fact, it is a little hard to know just what else He is except loving. And love has to do with humor, doesn't it? For you cannot love someone unless you can put up with him, can you?

I started traveling. My luggage was snowed under blizzards of travel stickers. I have been alone in Paris, alone in Vienna, alone in London, and all in all, it is very much like being alone in Green Town, Illinois. It is, in essence, being alone. Oh, you have plenty of time to think, improve your manners, sharpen your conversations. But I sometimes think I could easily trade a verb tense or a curtsy for some company that would stay over for a thirty-year weekend.

Will walked silently to touch the iron rungs hidden under the rustling ivy. "Dad. You won't pull these off …?" Dad probed one with his fingers. "Some day, when you're tired of them, you'll take them off yourself." "I'll never be tired of them." "Is that how it seems? Yes, to someone your age, you figure you'll never get tired of anything. All right, son, up you go.

Not everyone born free and equal, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man. Me? I won't stomach them for a minute.

Somewhere on the Earth tonight, my Tylla, there is a Man with a Lever, which, when he pulls it, Will Save The World. The man is now unemployed. His switch gathers dust. He himself plays pinochle.