Quotes from Ray Douglas Bradbury

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 192021 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!

A single face turned upward toward all Time One flesh, one ecstasy, one peace.

Oh come, please come, to the Poor Mouth Fair Where the Saints kneel round in their underwear And say out prayers that most need saying For needful sinners who've forgotten praying; And in every alcove and niche you spy The living dead who envy the long since gone Who never wished to die.

I've done a prideful thing, a thing more sinful than she ever done to me. I took the bottom out of her life.

Man warring on himself an old tale is; But Man discovering the source of all his sorrow in himself, Finding his left hand and his right Are similar sons, are children fighting In the porchyards of the void?!

We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.

A life's work should be based on love.

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

Leave off losings, and take on winnings, Erase all mortal ends, give birth to only new beginnings, In a billion years of morning and a billion years of sleep.

Ten thousand times a million sons of sons move Through one great and towering town Wearing their wits, which means their laughter, As their crown. Set free upon the earth By simple gifts of knowing how mere mirth can cut the bonds And pull the blood spikes out; Their conversation shouts of "Fool!"

Trapped in the blood, athirst for air, Christ, who once was employed as single Son of God Now finds Himself among three billion on a billion Brother sons, their arms thrown wide to grasp and hold and walk them everywhere Now weaving this, now weaving that in swoons

That so much time was wasted in this pain. Ten thousand years ago he might have let off down To not return again! A dreadful laugh at last escapes his lips; The laughter sets him free. A Fool lives in the Universe! he cries. The Fool is me! And with one final shake of laughter Breaks his bonds. The nails fall skittering to marble floors. And Christ, knelt at the rail, sees miracle As Man steps down in amiable wisdom To give himself what no one else can give: His liberty.

The crowd upon the cross gives anguished roar; A moment terrible to hear.

Why have you been so blind? Why have you never seen? The slave and master in one skin Is all your history, no more, no less Confess! This is what you've been.

You are the jailer and the jailed, You the impaler and the one that your own Million-fleshed self in dreams by night do hold in thrall and now at noon must kill.

You make to die You are the dead You the assassin of yourself

Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.

Stuff your eyes with wonder . . . live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

Montag, you're looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I'm one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the "guilty," but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.

If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you, and you'll never learn.

With schools turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word "intellectual," of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.

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.

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.

Joy is the grace we say to God.