Ray Bradbury Quotes

A book is a loaded gun in the house next door.

We think, I’m not a fool today. I’ve learned my lesson. I was a fool yesterday but not this morning. Then tomorrow we find out that, yes, we were a fool today too. I think the only way we can grow and get on in this world is to accept the fact we’re not perfect and live accordingly.

Timothy looked at the deep ocean sky, trying to see Earth and the war and the ruined cities and the men killing each other since the day he was born. But he saw nothing. The war was as removed and far off as two flies battling to the death in the arch of a great high and silent cathedral. And just as senseless... “What are you looking at so hard, Dad?” “I was looking for Earthian logic, common sense, good government, peace, and responsibility.” “All that up there?” “No. I didn’t find it. It’s not there any more. Maybe it’ll never be there again. Maybe we fooled ourselves that it was ever there.”

The gods had gone away, and the ritual of the religion continued senselessly, uselessly.

I’m being ironic. Don't interrupt a man in the midst of being ironic, it’s not polite.

They began by controlling books of cartoons and then detective books and, of course, films, one way or another, one group or another, political bias, religious prejudice, union pressures; there was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.

I have something to fight for and live for; that makes me a better killer. I’ve got what amounts to a religion, now.

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.

Marriage made people old and familiar, while still young.

The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land.

I am not a science fiction writer. I am a fantasy writer. But the label got put on me and stuck.

I write fantasy. The only science fiction I have written is Fahrenheit 451. It's the art of the possible. Science fiction is the art of the possible. It could happen. It has happened.

If you're reluctant to weep, you won't live a full and complete life.

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.