Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) was an American fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery fiction writer.
Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there.
Ray Bradbury
It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We’ve been so busy damning ourselves for years. We’ve done it all, and yet we don’t take credit for it.
Ray Bradbury
Don’t think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It’s self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can’t try to do things. You simply must do things.
Ray Bradbury
Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me.After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together.
Ray Bradbury
I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.
Ray Bradbury
We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.
Ray Bradbury
We are anthill men upon an anthill world.
Ray Bradbury
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.
Ray Bradbury
We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will. Incredible. The Life Force experimenting with forms. You for one. Me for another. The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts.
Ray Bradbury
Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.
Ray Bradbury
You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.
Ray Bradbury
You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
Ray Bradbury
You fail only if you stop writing.
Ray Bradbury
You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
Ray Bradbury
You’ve got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury
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.
Ray Bradbury
I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.
Ray Bradbury
If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury
If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.
Ray Bradbury
If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.
Ray Bradbury
If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.
Ray Bradbury
Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.
Ray Bradbury
Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury
Love is easy, and I love writing. You can’t resist love. You get an idea, someone says something, and you’re in love.
Ray Bradbury
Love is the answer to everything. It’s the only reason to do anything. If you don’t write stories you love, you’ll never make it. If you don’t write stories that other people love, you’ll never make it.
Ray Bradbury
Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.
Ray Bradbury
My stories run up and bite me on the leg – I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.
Ray Bradbury
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.
Ray Bradbury
The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance – the idea that anything is possible.
Ray Bradbury
There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
Ray Bradbury
Touch a scientist and you touch a child.
Ray Bradbury
If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go into business, because we’d be cynical. Well, that’s nonsense. You’ve got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
Ray Bradbury
