Quotes from Ray Bradbury

As long as everyone has ten thousand insurance everyone's happy.

The zipper displaces the button, and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and this a melancholy hour.

with the moon and the stars moving in a grand rotation toward inevitable dawn, and them loping, and the last of this night's weeping done ...

Science and machines can kill each other off or be replaced. Myth, seen in mirrors, incapable of being touched, stays on.

Scopo dei libri è di ricordarci quanto siamo somari, dissennati.

Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book.

Stuff your eyes with wonders [...]live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds.

This child can't be allowed to have normal playmates; why, they'd pester it to death in no time.

What a dreadful surprise," said Beatty. "For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely is certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on. There are no consequences and no responsibilities. Except that there are. But let's not talk about them, eh? By the time the consequences catch up with you, it's too late, isn't it, Montag?

GRANDPA'S LIBRARY WAS A FINE DARK PLACE bricked with books, so anything could happen there and always did. All you had to do was pull a book from the shelf and open it and suddenly the darkness was not so dark anymore.

The Murderer

Il faut que vous compreniez que notre civilisation est si vaste que nous ne pouvons nous permettre d'inquiéter et de déranger les minorités. (...) Les gens veulent être heureux, d'accord? (...) Les noirs n'aiment pas Little Black Sambo, brûlons le. La Case De L'oncle Tom met les blancs mal à l'aise, brûlons le. Quelqu'un a écrit un livre sur le tabac et le cancer des poumons? Les fumeurs pleurnichent? Brûlons le livre.

Mildred'?n yüzü, üstüne yaÄŸmur yaÄŸabilecek ama yaÄŸmuru hissetmeyen, karla kapl? bir ada gibiydi; bulutlar hareketli gölgelerini onun üstünden geçirebilirdi ama o gölgeleri hissetmiyordu.

So here, after fifty years, is Fahrenheit 451. I didn't know what I was doing, but I'm glad that it was done.

They lay blinking their dusty eyelids. ...Montag sat up. He did not move any further, however. The other men did likewise. The sun was touching the black horizon with a faint red tip.

Você já foi alguma vez a um museu? Tudo abstrato. É só o que há agora. Meu tio diz que antigamente era diferente. Muito tempo atrás, os quadros às vezes diziam alguma coisa ou até mostravam pessoas.

It shocked me to see Mrs.Phelps cry. Maybe they're right, maybe it's best not to face things, to run have fun. I don't know. I feel guilty— No, you mustn't! If there were no war, if there was peace in the world, I'd say fine, have fun! But, Montag, you mustn't go back to being just a fireman. All isn't well with the world.

Fuego brillante Posfacio de Ray Bradbury, febrero de 1993

For everyone nowadays knows, absolutely is certain, that nothing will ever happen to me. Others die, I go on. There are no consequences and no responsibilities. Except that there are.

Being with people is nice. But I don't think it's social to get a bunch of people together and then not let them talk, do you?

Fahrenheit 451 is speculative fiction. It's an "If this goes on . . ." story. Ray Bradbury was writing about his present, which is our past. He was warning us about things; some of those things are obvious, and some of them, half a century later, are harder to see.

It was a look, almost, of pale surprise; the dark eyes were so fixed to the world that no move escaped them.

We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Nuk e di. I kemi të gjitha ç'duhen për të qenë të lumtur, e prapë s'jemi dot të lumtur. Diçka mungon. Kërkova përreth dhe pashë se e vetmja gjë që më mungonte ishin librat, ata që unë i kisha djegur gjatë gjithë këtyre dhjetë a njëzet vjetve të fundit. Dhe atëherë mendova se ndoshta janë librat ata që do të më ndihmojnë.