Quotes from Ray Bradbury

Ignorance is fatal, M. Garrett

As Samuel Spaulding, Esquire, once said, 'Dig in the earth, delve in the soul.' Spin those mower blades, Bill, and walk in the spray of the Fountain of Youth. End of lecture. Besides, a mess of dandelion greens is good eating once in a while.

Sure, it's money runs the world, Doone agreed, seated there. But it is music that holds down the friction.

Moundshroud, leaning over, gave a snort: "Why those are Sins, boys! And nondescripts. There crawls the Worm of Conscience!

It fell to the floor, an exquisite thing, a small thing that could upset balances and knock down a line of small dominoes and then big dominoes and then gigantic dominoes, all down the years across Time. Eckels' mind whirled. It couldn't change things. Killing one butterfly couldn't be that important! Could it?

Come on, get up, get up, you can't just sit! But he was still crying and that had to be finished.

And Will? Why, he's the last peach, high on a summer tree. Some boys walk by and you cry, seeing them. They feel good, they look good, they are good. Oh, they're not above peeing off a bridge, or stealing an occasional dime-store pencil sharpener; it's not that. It's just, you know, seeing them pass, that's how they'll be all their life; they'll get hit, hurt, cut, bruised, and always wonder why, why does it happen? how can it happen to them?

Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet. Smoke panted up out of a thousand chimneys like the plumes of funeral parades. From kitchen windows drifted two pumpkin smells: gourds being cut, pies being baked.

We never burned right.

They read the long afternoon through, while the cold November rain fell from the sky upon the quiet house. They sat in the hall because the parlor was so empty and gray-looking

It flourished on the air softly in vapors of cobalt light, whispering and sighing.

Silly words, silly words, silly awful hurting words.

And on either side of the river was there a tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month; And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. Yes, thought Montag, that's the one I'll save for noon. For noon. . . . When we reach the city.

There are billions of us and that's too many. Nobody knows anyone. Strangers come and violate you. Strangers come and cut your heart out. Strangers come and take your blood.

Reading is at the center of our lives. The library is our brain. Without the library, you have no civilization.

It was pretty silly quoting poetry around free and easy like that. It was the act of a silly damn snob. Give man a few lines of verse and he thinks he's the Lord of all Creation. You think you can walk on water with all your books. Well, the world can get by just fine without them.

The girl stopped and looked as if she might pull back in surprise, but instead stood regarding Montag with eyes so dark and shining and alive, that he felt he had said something quite wonderful. But he knew his his mouth had only moved to say hello

Did all dying people feel this way, as if they had never lived?

They got Indian vision and can sight back further than you and me will ever sight ahead.

There are many actors alone who haven't acted Pirandello or Shaw or Shakespeare for years because their plays are too aware of the world. We could use their anger. And we could use the honest rage of those historians who haven't written a line for forty years. True, we might form classes in thinking and reading.

The men were making too much noise, laughing, joking, to cover her terrible accusing silence below. She made the empty rooms roar with accusation and shake down a fine dust go guilt that was sucked in their nostrils as they plunged about.

You could see her thoughts swimming around in her eyes, like fish - some bright, some dark, some fast, quick, some slow and easy, and sometimes, like when she looked up where Earth was, being nothing but colour and nothing else.

Amoebas cannot sin because they reproduce by fission. They do not covet wives or murder each other.

We might start off by paraphrasing Oscar Wilde's poem, substituting the word 'Art' for 'Love'. Art will fly if held too lightly, Art will die if held too tightly, Lightly, tightly, how do I know Whether I'm holding or letting Art go?