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Ray Bradbury

236 quotes

“There they go, off to Venus, just for the ride, thinking that they will find a planet like a seer's crystal, in which to read a miraculous future. What they'll find, instead, is the somewhat shopworn image of themselves. Mars is a mirror, not a crystal.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Few Notes on The Martian Chronicles", in Rhodomagnetic Digest (May 1950)
“The jungle looked back at them with a vastness, a breathing moss-and-leaf silence, with a billion diamond and emerald insect eyes.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1953 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: And the Rock Cried Out" (1953), reprinted in The Day It Rained Forever (1959)
“Science-fiction balances you on the cliff. Fantasy shoves you off.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1956 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Circus of Dr. Lao Introduction (1956)
“Disbelief is catching. It rubs off on people.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1962 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Miracle of Rare Device", in Playboy (January 1962)
“My first decision about a career was at eleven, to be a and travel the world with my . My second decision was at twelve when I got a toy typewriter for Christmas. And I decided to become a . And between the decision and the reality lay eight years of junior high school, high school, and selling newspapers on a street corner in Los Angeles, while I wrote three million words.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1966 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (191 pages; Ray Bradbury’s essay "How to keep and feed a muse" was originally published in On Writing, By Writers, edited by William Walter West, 1966, Boston: Ginn & Company.)
“All flesh is one: what matter scores; Or color of the suit Or if the helmet glints with blue or gold? All is one bold achievement, All is fine spring-found-again-in-autumn day When juices run in antelopes along our blood, And green our flag, forever green…”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: All flesh is one: what matter scores?" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)
“Mysteries abound where most we seek for answers.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: All flesh is one: what matter scores?" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)
“All silence is. All emptiness. And now: The dawn.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1973 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Emily Dickinson, where are you? Herman Melville called your name last night in his sleep!" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)
“YOUR INFLUENCE ON US ALL, FROM 1939 ON, CANNOT BE MEASURED. I CAN ONLY SAY I REMEMBER, WARMLY, YOUR MANY KINDNESSES TO ME WHEN I WAS 19–20–21 YEARS OLD. THAT YOUNG MAN BASKED IN YOUR LIGHT AND WILL CONTINUE TO BE GRATEFUL FOR THE HELP YOU OFFERED WHEN I WAS SO POOR & NEEDFUL!”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1976 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Robert A. Heinlein (1976) · Photograph of note on Bradbury's stationary
“We clothe ourselves in flame And trade new myths for old. The Greek gods christen us With ghosts of comet swords; God smiles and names us thus: " "Arise! Run! Fly, my Lords!”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1977 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: We March Back to Olympus" in Where Robot Mice and Robot Men Run Round in Robot Towns (1977), p. 11
“People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1979 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Beyond 1984: The People Machines (1979)
“I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1989 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why Cartoons Are Forever", Los Angeles Times (3 December 1989)
“My stories run up and bite me in the leg — I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) said by 2012 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preface to Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)
“Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Preface to Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)
“From now on I hope always to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. 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.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)
“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Zen in the Art of Writing (1990)
“Life is like underwear, should be changed twice a day.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990)
“Oh God, without them [libraries], what have we? We have no past and we have no future.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1990 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mojave magazine (November 1990)
“The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. Look at the magazines, the newspapers around us – it's all junk, all trash, tidbits of news. The average TV ad has 120 images a minute. Everything just falls off your mind. … You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1993 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Bradbury Still Believes in Heat of ‘Fahrenheit 451’", interview by Misha Berson, in (12 March 1993); later quoted in Reader's Digest and The Times Book of Quotations. The 1993 Seattle Times is the earliest…
“I've always written at the top of my lungs and from some secret motives within. I have followed the advice of my good friend Federico Fellini who, when asked about his work, said, "Don't tell me what I'm doing, I don't want to know.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Author's Introduction to 2003 Folio Society edition of Fahrenheit 451
“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Brown Daily Herald (24 March 1995)
“My job is to help you fall in love.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Brown University (1995)
“Recreate the world in your own image and make it better for your having been here.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Brown University (1995)
“We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe.... If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1995 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech to National School Board Association (1995)
“The gift of life is so precious that we should feel an obligation to pay back the universe for the gift of being alive.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1997 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at Eureka College (1997)
“We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1998 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: G. B. S. — Mark V", in I Sing the Body Electric: And Other Stories (1998)
“The women in my life have all been librarians, English teachers, or booksellers. If they couldn't speak pidgin Tolstoy, articulate Henry James, or give me directions to Usher and Ox, it was no go. I have always longed for education, and pillow talk's the best.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1999 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Foreword to A Passion for Books (1999) by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan
“If you can't read and write you can't think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don't know how to read and write. You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Salon.com (29 August 2001)
“Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don't do that. On occasion? Sure. As relaxation? Great. But not full time— And a lot of people are doing that. And while they're doing that, I'll go ahead and write another novel.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Salon.com (29 August 2001)
“Why would you clone people when you can go to bed with them and make a baby? C'mon, it's stupid.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Salon Magazine (29 August 2001)
“I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true — hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Ray Bradbury: The Uncensored Biography (2006) by Gene Beley, p. 284
“I believe the universe created us — we are an audience for miracles. In that sense, I guess, I'm religious.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: AARP Magazine (July-August 2008)
“A life's work should be based on love.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Barnes & Nobel Santa Monica Promenade Book Signing (2008)
“There is no future for e-books, because they are not books. E-books smell like burned fuel.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2008 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: BookExpo America, Los Angeles (May 2008). Reported in USA Today (June 1, 2008) and The Guardian (3 June 2008)
“At the center of religion is love. I love you and I forgive you. I am like you and you are like me. I love all people. I love the world. I love creating. Everything in our life should be based on love.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Sci-fi legend "Ray Bradbury on God, 'monsters and angels'" by John Blake, CNN : Living (2 August 2010), p. 1
“Joy is the grace we say to God.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Sci-fi legend "Ray Bradbury on God, 'monsters and angels'" by John Blake, CNN : Living (2 August 2010), p. 2
“We must move into the universe. Mankind must save itself. We must escape the danger of war and politics. We must become astronauts and go out into the universe and discover the God in ourselves.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Sci-fi legend "Ray Bradbury on God, 'monsters and angels'" by John Blake, CNN : Living (2 August 2010), p. 3
“We have too many cellphones. We've got too many Internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ray Bradbury hates big government: ‘Our country is in need of a revolution’" in The Los Angeles Times : Hero Complex (16 August 2010)
“If you're reluctant to weep, you won't live a full and complete life.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Personal lessons from futurist Ray Bradbury on crying, escaping, laughing, by Mick Mortlock; Oregon Live (6 June 2012)
“I write fantasy. The only science fiction I have written is Fahrenheit 451. It's the art of the possible. Science fiction is the art of the possible. It could happen. It has happened.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A Conversation with Ray Bradbury - Point Loma Nazarene University, Writer's Symposium By The Sea; April, 2001
“I am not a science fiction writer. I am a fantasy writer. But the label got put on me and stuck.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ray Bradbury interview March 23, 2005
“The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Rocket Summer (1950)
“Marriage made people old and familiar, while still young.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ylla (1950)
“We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big beautiful things. The only reason we didn’t set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: —And the Moon Be Still as Bright (1948)
“I have something to fight for and live for; that makes me a better killer. I’ve got what amounts to a religion, now.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1948 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: —And the Moon Be Still as Bright (1948)
“They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressures; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Usher II (1950)
“I’m being ironic. Don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it’s not polite.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Usher II (1950)
“Ignorance is fatal.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Usher II (1950)
“The gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.”
Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: There Will Come Soft Rains (1950)