Quotes from Ray Bradbury

We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law.

Ye gods and fishes, lad, every town has its resident witch. Every town hides some old Greek pagan priest, some Roman worshipper of tiny gods who ran up the roads, hid in culverts, sank in caves to escape the Christians! In every tiny village, boy, in every scrubby farm the old religions hide out . . . all the little lollygaggin' cults, all flavors and types, scramble to survive. See how they run, boys!

Don't ever be a Rocket Man." I stopped. "I mean it," he said. "Because when you're out there you want to be here, and when you're here you want to be out there. Don't start that.

When did it start, you ask, this job of ours (to burn book). There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Colored people don't like Little Black Sambo. Burn it. White people don't feel good about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Burn it. Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator.

Oh, what strange wonderful clocks women are. They nest in Time. They make the flesh that holds fast and binds eternity.

She looked at the skull and laughed. Death is a good thing in Mexico; it is a thing to talk of at dinner, at breakfast, with or without a drink, with or without a smile. (The Candy Skull)

How talented was death. How many expressions and manipulations of hand, face, body, no two alike. They stood like the naked pipes of a vast derelict calliope, their mouths cut into frantic vents. And now the great hand of mania descended upon one hundred-throated, unending scream.

I hate a Roman named Status Quo

But most of all," she said, "I like to watch people. Sometimes I ride the subway all day and look at them and listen to them. I just want to figure out who they are and what they want and where they're going.

At the very moment Mrs. Bentley was smiling down upon them with her yellow mask face, around a corner like an elfin band came an ice-cream wagon. It jingled out icy melodies, as crisp and rimmed as crystal wine-glasses tapped by an expert, summoning all. The children sat up, turning their heads, like sunflowers after the sun. (Season of Disbelief)

The bombers crossed the sky and crossed the sky over the house, gasping, murmuring, whistling like an immense, invisible fan, circling in emptiness.

But," whispered Tom, "oh, look. What's up in that tree!" For the Tree was hung with a variety of pumpkins of every shape and size and a number of tints and hues of smoky yellow or bright orange. "A pumpkin tree," someone said. "No," said Tom. The wind blew among the high branches and tossed their bright burdens, softly. "A Halloween Tree," said Tom. And he was right.

The river was very real; it held him comfortably and gave him the time at last, the leisure, to consider this month, this year, and a lifetime of years.

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.

Watching the boys vanish away, Charles Halloway suppressed a sudden urge to run with them, make the pack. He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the secret places that were never so secret again in life. Somewhere in him, a shadow turned mournfully over. You had to run with a night like this, so the sadness could not hurt.

Sapete che i libri hanno un po'l'odore della noce moscata o di certe spezie d'origine esotica? Amavo annusarli, da ragazzo. Signore, quanti bei libri c'erano al mondo un tempo, prima che noi vi rinunciassimo!

You fail, only if you stop writing.

Thomas Wolfe ate the world and vomited lava. Dickens dined at a different table every hour of his life. Molière, tasting society, turned to pick up his scalpel, as did Pope and Shaw.

Riempiti gli occhi di meraviglie, vivi come se dovessi cadere morto fra dieci secondi! Guarda il mondo: è più fantastico di qualunque sogno studiato e prodotto dalle più grandi fabbriche.

Once upon a time there were two cities within a city. One was light and one was dark. One moved restlessly all day while the other never stirred. One was warm and filled with ever-changing lights. One was cold and fixed in place by stones. And when the sun went down each afternoon on Maximus Films, the city of the living, it began to resemble Green Glade cemetery just across the way, which was the city of the dead.

On page 86, This wasn't like Jim. Always before, the window slid up, Jim's head popped out, ripe with yells, secret hissings, giggles, riots and rebel charges. This quote shows that something isn't right, that this isn't what Will was expecting of Jim. This quote can foreshadow of what could happen later in the book.

When did it all start, you ask, this job of ours (to burn book). There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship. Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Ask yourself what do people want in this country above all? People want to be happy isn't that right? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation?

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.

Whoever he was or whatever he was and no matter how different and crazy he seemed, he was not crazy.