Ray Bradbury (1920–2012,) fully Ray Douglas Bradbury, was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, playwright, and poet. He is celebrated for his novels and original short stories that combine a poetic style, nostalgia for childhood and American small-town life, social criticism, and a consciousness of the perils of runaway technology.
Born in Waukegan, Illinois, Bradbury lived from 1934 in Los Angeles, where he educated himself at the public libraries. A devoted fan of sensational fiction and comics, he began contributing to pulp magazines, graduating to literary magazines and short story anthologies. He was one of the first authors to blend the concepts of science fiction with a sophisticated prose style.
Bradbury’s best-known novel is Fahrenheit 451 (1953; film adaptation, 1966.) Written on a rented typewriter in just nine days in the basement of a library at the University of California at Los Angeles, it is a disconcerting portrayal of a future where society has proscribed literature. The title comes from the temperature at which paper burns without being exposed to flame.
Bradbury’s novels include The Illustrated Man (1951,) Dandelion Wine (1957,) Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962,) Death is a Lonely Business (1985,) A Graveyard for Lunatics (1990,) and Farewell Summer (2006.)
Bradbury is renowned in particular as a short-story writer; he created some of the best examples in the genre, among them ‘The Day It Rained Forever,’ ‘R is for Rocket,’ and those included in The Martian Chronicles (1950.) The Toynbee Convector (1988) was the last of his many collections of short stories.
Bradbury also wrote plays, poetry, children’s stories, screenplays, and volumes of essays, such as Journey to Far Metaphor (1994.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Ray Bradbury
You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.
—Ray Bradbury
It is good to renew one’s wonder, said the philosopher.
Space travel has again made children of us all.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Space
The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Television
It doesn’t matter what you do…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.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: God
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
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
First you jump off the cliff and you build wings on the way down.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Fear
Life is “trying things to see if they work.”
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Life
I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: The Future, Future
You can’t try to do things; you simply must do them.
—Ray Bradbury
The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Writing
When I was a young man, I didn’t think about having a family. My wife and I were too poor to have babies. Then all of a sudden, one came along and scared the hell out of us because we had no money. Once the baby arrives, you make do somehow. You fall in love with the baby and life adjusts itself. You find you don’t need as much money as you thought. When that happens, you can ask the questions that should have come before the baby.
—Ray Bradbury
Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it’s the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. …Science fiction is central to everything we’ve ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don’t know what they’re talking about.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Science Fiction
We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.
—Ray Bradbury
You can make yourself happy or miserable – it’s the same amount of effort.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Happiness
Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do.
—Ray Bradbury
Chock them so … full of “facts” they feel stuffed, but absolutely “brilliant” with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Information
If you dream the proper dreams, and share the myths with people, they will want to grow up to be like you.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Dreams
If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.
—Ray Bradbury
Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Authors & Writing
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
Topics: Thought, Thinking
Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall
—Ray Bradbury
And now, these books. This. He touched PHYSIOGNOMONIE. The secrets of the individual’s character as found on his face. Were Jim and Will, then, featured all angelic, pure, half-innocent, peering up through the sidewalk at marching terror? Did the boys represent the ideal for your Woman, Man, or Child of Excellent Bearing, Color, Balance, and Summer Disposition?
Converserly…Charles Halloway turned a page…did the scurrying freaks, the Illustrated Marvel, bear the foreheads of the Irascible, the Cruel, the Covetous, the mouths of the Lewd and Untruthful? the teeth of the Crafty, the Unstable, the Audacious, the Vainglorious, and your Marvelous Beast?
No. The book slipped shut. If faces were judged, the freaks were no worse than many he’d been slipping from the liberty late nights in his long career.
There was only one thing sure.
Two lines of Shakespeare said it. He should write them in the middle of the clock of books, to fix the heart of his apprehension:
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
So vague yet so immense.
He did not want to live with it.
Yet he knew that, during this night, unless he lived with it very well, he might have to live with it for all the rest of his life.
At the window he looked out and thought Jim, Will, are you coming? will you get here?
Waiting, his flesh took paleness from his bones.
—Ray Bradbury
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.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Facts
We’re all fools…all the time. It’s just we’re a different kind each day. 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.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Growth
Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Travel
Sometimes you’ve got to jump off cliffs and grow wings on the way down.
—Ray Bradbury
I love writing, it’s the center of my life. If you don’t love what you do, you’d better find something else to love. Otherwise, you don’t have a reason for living.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Authors & Writing
If we listened to our intellect we’d never have a love affair. We’d never have a friendship. We’d never go in business because we’d be cynical: It’s gonna go wrong. Or She’s going to hurt me. Or, I’ve had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore … Well, that’s nonsense. You’re going to miss life. You’ve got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Friendship, Win, Sin, Business, Risk-taking, Jump, Time, Intelligence, Bravery, Love, Courage, Risk, Intellectuals
Find out what your hero or heroine wants, and when he or she wakes up in the morning, just follow him or her all day.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Writing
A good night’s sleep, or a ten-minute brawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.
—Ray Bradbury
Topics: Medicine
The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance – the idea that anything is possible.
—Ray Bradbury
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