Quotes from Ray Bradbury

So few want to be rebels anymore.

Some people turn sad awfully young. No special reason, it seems, but they seem almost to be born that way. They bruise easier, tire faster, cry quicker, remember longer.

And I thought about books. And for the first time I realized that a man was behind each one of the books. A man had to think them up. A man had to take a long time to put them down on paper. And I'd never even thought that thought before.

All the things which had uses. All the mountains which had names. We'll give them new names, but the old names are there, somewhere in time... -Bradbury, The Martian Chronicles

For being good is a fearful occupation; men strain at it & sometimes break in two. I've known a few. You work twice as hard to be a farmer as to be his hog.

Important thing is not the me that's lying here, but the me that's sitting on the edge of the bed looking back at me, and the me that's downstairs cooking supper, or out in the garage under the car, or in the library reading. All the new parts, they count. I'm not really dying today. No person ever died that had a family.

They'll fry you, bleach you, change you! Crack you, flake you away until you're nothing but a husband, a working man, the one with the money who pays so they can come sit in there devouring their evil chocalates! Do you think you could control them?

I don't know anything anymore

He] was always here to offer cups of good clear Walden Pond, or shout down the deep well of Shakespeare and listen, with satisfaction, for echoes. Here the lion and the hartebeest lay together, here the jackass became a unicorn.

If you had your way you'd pass a law to abolish all the little jobs, the little things. But then you'd leave yourselves nothing to do between the big jobs and you'd have a devil of a time thinking up things to do so you wouldn't go crazy. Instead of that, why not let nature show you a few things? Cutting grass and pulling weeds can be a way of life, son.

The things that you do should be things that you love, and things that you love should be things that you do.

I'll be darned! said Douglas. I never thought of that. That's brilliant! It's true. Old people never were children! And it's kind of sad, said Tom, sitting still.There's nothing we can do to help them.

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.

Those women like to see their tongues dance.

The thing that makes me happy is that I know that on Mars, two hundred years from now, my books are going to be read. They'll be up on dead Mars with no atmosphere. And late at night, with a flashlight, some little boy is going to peek under the covers and read The Martian Chronicles on Mars.

You're either in love with what you do, or you're not in love.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

And the sea moved her back down the shore.

How talented was death. How many expressions and manipulations of hand, face, body, no two alike.

You can't build a house without nails and wood. If you don't want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides of a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.

You had to run with a night like this, so the sadness could not hurt.

We won't ruin Mars," said the captain. "It's too big and too good." "You think not? 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.

It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books.

In the silence, our stage whisper might carry.