Ray Bradbury

“Beware the autumn people”

“Death loves death, not life. Dying people love to know that others die with them; it is a comfort to learn you are not alone in the kiln, in the grave.”

“Let me alone," said Mildred"Let you alone!" He almost cried out with laughter. "Letting you alone is easy, but how can I leave myself alone? That's what's wrong. We need not to be let alone. We need to be upset and stirred and bothered, once in a while, anyway. Nobody bothers anymore. Nobody thinks. Let a baby alone, why don't you? What would you have in twenty years? A savage, unable to think or talk--like us!”

“Whatever she is now she's better than she was," said Bedloe. "Being dead is better than being dull, being dead is better than not being aware.”

“Looking at her in the hospital he had thought, I don't know you, who you are, does it matter if we live or die?”

“I don't try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.”

“I've tasted every victual and danced every dance; now there's one last tart I haven't bit on, one time I haven't whistled. but I'm not afraid. I'm truly curious. Death won't get a crumb by my mouth I won't keep and savor. So don't you worry over me. Now, all of you go, and let me find my sleep....”

“And the sea moved her back down the shore.”

“Doom. Doom. You sound like a funeral bell tolling,' said Grandfather. 'Talk like that is worse than swearing. I won't wash out your mouth with soap, however. A thimbleful of dandelion wine is indicated. Here, now, swig it down What's it taste like?''I'm a fire-eater! Whoosh!''Now upstairs, run three times around the block, do five somersets, six pushups, climb two trees, and you'll be concertmaster instead of chief mourner. Get!'On his way, running, Douglas thought, 'Four pushups, one tree and two somersets will do it”

“Boy," said the old man at last, "in five years, how would you like a job selling shoes in this emporium?""Gosh, thanks, Mr. Sanderson, but I don't know what I'm going to be yet.""Anything you want to be son," said the old man, "you'll be. No one will ever stop you.”

“Man has always been half-monster, half-dreamer.”

“He stood and he only had one leg. The other was like a chunk of burnt pine-log he was carrying along as a penance for some obscure sin.”

“Give a man a few lines of verse and he thinks he's the Lord of all Creation.”

“...Until they stood at last by a crumbling wall, looking up and up and still farther up at the great tombyard top of the old house. For that's what it seemed. The high mountain peak of the mansion was littered with what looked like black bones or iron rods, and enough chimneys to choke out smoke signals from three dozen fires on sooty hearths hidden far below in dim bowels of this monster place. With so many chimneys, the roof seemed a vast cemetery, each chimney signifying the burial place of some old god of fire or enchantress of steam, smoke, and firefly spark. even as they watched, a kind of bleak exhalation of soot breathed up out of some four dozen flues, darkening the sky still more, and putting out some few stars.”

“When you reach the stars, boy, yes, and live there forever, all the fears will go, and Death himself will die.”

“I talk. Jim runs. I tilt stones, Jim grabs the cold junk under the stones and -lickety-split! I climb hills. Jim yells off church steeples. I got a bank account. Jim’s got the hair on his head, the yell in his mouth, the shirt on his back and the tennis shoes on his feet. How come I think he’s richer?”

“We need our Arts to teach us how to breathe”

“e-books "smell like burned fuel”

“Mireasma fanului uscat si curgerea domoala a apei trezira in el dorinta de a se culca intr-o claie de fan proaspat, intr-un sopron singuratic, departe de autostrazile zgomotoase, in spatele vreunei ferme linistite, sub vreo moara veche de vant, care sa vuiasca lin, cu vuietul anilor ce trec. Ar sta treaz toata noaptea in sopronul acela, ascultand zvoana departata a jivinelor, ganganiilor si copacilor, freamatul si forfota lor marunta.”

“Erau miliarde de frunze pe pamant: Montag se balacea in ele ca-ntr-un rau uscat care mirosea a praf cald si a mirodenii. Dar celelelte miresme! Pamantul rece si nins de razele lunii mirosea a cartofi cruzi! Mai mirosea si a muraturi si a patrunjel, si a mustar. Iar in vazduh plutea si parfumul garoafelor din curtea casei vecine. Montag intinse mana si simti cum o buruiana se inalta ca un copil, fecandu-si capul de el. Degetele lui miroseau acum a lemn dulce.Se ridica in picioare si incepu sa respire adanc; cu cat respira mai adanc, cu atat se umplea de amanuntele vii ale acestui taram. Nu mai era gol pe dinauntru; gasea aici destula hrana ca sa-si sature sufletul. Totdeauna va fi destula hrana de acest fel in lume.”

“Primul lucru, dupa cum spuneam, e calitatea cunostintelor noastre. Al doilea lucru, strans legat de primul, e ragazul necesar pentru a le digera. Iar al treilea e dreptul de a savarsi fapte intemeiatepe ceaa ce invatam din primele doua.”

“Isi purta fericirea ca pe o masca, iar fata aceea fugise cu masca prin curtea casei ei, si nu era chip sa se duca sa i-o ceara inapoi.”

“Daca vrei ca un om sa fie fericit politiceste, nu-i infatisa doua laturi ale unei probleme, caci s-ar framanta, prezinta-i o singura latura, sau chiar nici una, e si mai bine. Lasa-l sa uite c-ar exista primejdia razboiului. Daca guvernul e incapabil, birocratic si ahtiat de impozite, lasa-l sa ramana asa, decat sa-i faci pe oameni sa se necajeasca din pricina asta. Avem nevoie de liniste, Montag. Da-le oamenilor concursuri la care castiga cei care-si aduc aminte cuvintele celor mai polulare cantece, sau de numele capitalelor diferitelor state, sau de recolta de porumb obtinuta in Iowa acum un an. Umple-le mintea cu date ne-inflamabile, impaneaza-le-o cu “fapte” pana ajung sa se simta ghiftuiti, dar grozav de “informati”; atunci au sa-si inchipuie ca gandesc, au sa aiba iluzia miscarii, fara sa se miste. Si-au sa fie fericiti, deoarece “faptele” de acest gen raman neschimbate. Nu trebuie sa le dai vreo materie nesigura, ca filozofia sau sociologia, cu care sa incerce sa-si explice lucrurile. I-ar apuca stenahoria. Orice om capabil sa monteze si sa demonteze un perete de televiziune – si mai toti oamenii sunt capabili acum de asa ceva – este mai fericit decat un om care icearca sa sa masoare, sa fixeze in calcule si ecuatii universul, ce nu se lasa masurat si calculat fara a-l face pe om sa se simta singur ca un animal. Stiu prea bine ca asa se intampla, fiindca am incercat eu insumi. La naiba cu toate astea! Traiasca seratele si cluburile, acrobatii si magicienii, petrecaretii, limuzinele cu reactie, elicopterele-motociclete, pornografia si stupefiantele, tot ce poate simula reflexele automate. Daca piesa e de proasta calitate, daca filmul nu spune nimic, daca spectacolul e lipsit de miez, faceti-mi o injectie cu theremina, si-am sa cred ca piesa ma emotioneaza, desi in realitate va fi doar o reactie tactila la o anumita vibratie. Nu-mi pasa, imi lace sa ma distrez copios!”

“You should've thought of that before becoming a fireman.""Thought!" he said. "Was I given a choice? I was raised to think the best thing in the world is not to read. The best thing is television and radio and ball games and a home I can't afford and, Good Lord, now, only now I realize what I've done. My grandfather and father were firemen. Walking in my sleep I followed them.”

“I'm a California boy. I don't tell anyone how to write and no one tells me.(Paris Review Interview)”

“It's a lonely life, but you're used to it now, aren't you?”

“A story should be like a river, flowing and never stopping, your readers passengers on a boat, whirling downstream through constantly refreshing and changing scemery.”

“If you have moved over vast territories and dared to love silly things, you will have learned even from the most primitive items collected and put aside in your life.”

“Hello!" He said hello and then said, "What are you up to now?" "I'm still crazy. The rain feels good. I love to walk in it. "I don't think I'd like that," he said. "You might if you tried." "I never have." She licked her lips. "Rain even tastes good." "What do you do, go around trying everything once?" he asked. "Sometimes twice.”

“Once you kill all of us, and you're alone, you'll die! The hate will die. That hate is what moves you, nothing else! That envy moves you. Nothing else! You'll die, inevitably. You're not immortal. You're not even alive, you're nothing but moving hate.”

“It is a subliminal thing. It is the tick of a clock that has ticked so long one no longer notices. Something is in a room when a man lives in it. Something is not in the room when a man is dead in it.”

“Memory is an illusion, nothing more. It is a fire that needs constant tending.”

“My men are my references. They're waiting outside for the books. They're dangerous.""Men like that always are.”

“A computer does not smell ... if a book is new, it smells great. If a book is old, it smells even better… And it stays with you forever. But the computer doesn’t do that for you. I’m sorry.”

“Over the years, they had destroyed all of him, removing hands, arms, and legs and leaving him with substitutes as delicate and useless as chess pieces. And now they were tampering with something more intangible--the memory; they were trying to cut the wires which led back into another year.”

“It's the way God runs the world."Tom thought about this for a moment."He's all right, Doug," said Tom. "He tries.”

“Ignorance is fatal.”

“The fire crackled up the stairs. It fed upon Picassos and Matisses in the upper halls, like delicacies, baking off the oily flesh, tenderly crisping the canvases into black shavings.”

“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.”

“It was one of those things they keep in a jar in the tent of a sideshow on the outskirts of a little, drowsy town. One of those pale things drifting in alcohol plasma, forever dreaming and circling, with its peeled, dead eyes staring out at you and never seeing you. It went with the noiselessness of late night, and only the crickets chirping, the frogs sobbing off in the moist swampland. One of those things in a big jar that makes your stomach jump as it does when you see a preserved arm in a laboratory vat.”

“Those who don't build must burn.”

“Goodnight!" She started her walk. Then she seemed to remember something and came back to look at him with wonder and curiosity. "Are you happy?" she said?"Am I what?" he cried.But she was gone - running in the moonlight. Her Front door shut gently.”

“I don't know anything any more," he said, and let a sleep lozenge dissolve on his tongue”

“The things you're looking for...are in the world, but the only way the average chap will see ninety-nine percent of them is in a book.”

“Throughout his life, Bradbury liked to recount the story of meeting a carnival magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932. At the end of his performance Electrico reached out to the twelve-year-old Bradbury, touched the boy with his sword, and commanded, Live forever! Bradbury later said, I decided that was the greatest idea I had ever heard. I started writing every day. I never stopped.”

“The rockets set the bony meadows afire, turned rock to lava, turned wood to charcoal, transmuted water to steam, made sand and silica into green glass which lay like shattered mirrors reflecting the invasion, all about. The rockets came like drums, beating in the night. The rockets came like locusts, swarming and settling in blooms of rosy smoke.”

“She didn’t watch the dead, ancient bone-chess cities slide under, or the old canals filled with emptiness and dreams. Past dry rivers and dry lakes they flew, like a shadow of the moon, like a torch burning.”

“Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything.”

“The multicolored or grey lights touching their faces, but never really touching them...”

“You knew the sweetness of now, now, TONIGHT! who cares for tomorrow, tomorrow is nothing, yesterday is over and done, tonight live, tonight!”