Ray Bradbury Quotes
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Forgive, I hope you won't be upset, but when I was a boy I used to look up and see you behind your desk, so near but far away, and, how can I say this, I used to think that you were Mrs. God, and that the library was a whole world, and that no matter what part of the world or what people or thing I wanted to see and read, you'd find and give it to me.
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Ideas result from the collision of metaphors inside the head.
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I've never been in charge of my stories, they've always been in charge of me. As each new one has called to me, ordering me to give it voice and form and life, I've followed the advice I've shared with other writers over the years: jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.
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The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies. I'll show you my collection some day.Good.They want to know what I do with my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit and think. But I won't tell them what. I've got them running. And sometimes, I tell them, I like to put my head back, like this, and let the rain fall in my mouth. It tastes just like wine. Have you ever tried it?
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Men are nuts. Young men are crazy. We all love toys. I'm toy oriented. I write about toys. I've got a lot of toys. Hundreds of things. But computers are toys, and men like to mess around with smart dumb things. They feel creative.
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I am madness maddened when it comes to books, writers, and the great granary silos where their wits are stored.
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...trees to cool the towns in the boiling summer, trees to hold back the winter winds. There were so many things a tree could do: add color, provide shade, drop fruit, or become a children's playground, a whole sky universe to climb and hang from; an architecture of food and pleasure, that was a tree. But most of all the trees would distill an icy air for the lungs, and a gentle rustling for the ear when you lay nights in your snowy bed and were gentled to sleep by the sound.
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We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost.
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Teachers are to inspire; librarians are to fulfill.
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Don’t try to write a novel. Write short stories and then figure out how to connect them.
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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.
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You're not like the others. I've seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon.
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Through neglect, ignorance, or inability, the new intellectual Borgias cram hairballs down our throats and refuse us the convulsion that could make us well. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, the ancient knowledge that only by being truly sick can one regain health. Even beasts know when it is good and proper to throw up. Teach me how to be sick then, in the right time and place, so that I may again walk in the fields and with the wise and smiling dogs know enough to chew sweet grass.
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Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.
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The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.
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I went to bed and woke in the middle of the night thinking I heard someone cry, thinking I myself was weeping, and I felt my face and it was dry. Then I looked at the window and thought: Why, yes, it's just the rain, the rain, always the rain, and turned over, sadder still, and fumbled about for my dripping sleep and tried to slip it back on.
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We all are rich and ignore the buried fact of accumulated wisdom.
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Kids love me because I write stories that tell them about their capacity for evil. I'm one of the few writers who lets you cleanse yourself that way.
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Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don't they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.
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You must never name the goal. You must never tell us the target you're hitting for. You must automatically go toward it without ever naming it.
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Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything.
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Facts quite often, I fear to confess, like lawyers, put me to sleep at noon. Not theories, however. Theories are invigorating and tonic. Give me an ounce of fact and I will produce you a ton of theory by tea this afternoon. That is, after all, my job.
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What are you up to now?" "I'm sill crazy. The rain feels good. I love to walk in it.
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All education is self-discovery.