Ray Bradbury: Trending quotes (page 17)

“No,” said the old man, deep under. “I don’t remember anyone winning anywhere any time. War’s never a winning thing, Charlie. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms. All I remember is a lot of losing and sadness and nothing good but the end of it. The end of it, Charles, that was a winning all to itself, having nothing to do with guns.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Variant: “You remember winning, don’t you? A battle won, somewhere?”
“No,” said the old man, deep under. “I don’t remember anyone winning anywhere any time. War’s never a winning thing, Charlie. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms. All I remember is a lot of losing and sadness and nothing good but the end of it. The end of it, Charles, that was a winning all to itself, having nothing to do with guns.
Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 85

War , Sadness , Time

““Oh,” said Brunilla, the cow-searcher. “A man with wings.”
That was how she took it. She was startled, yes, but she had never been hurt in her life, so she wasn’t afraid of anyone, and it was a fancy thing to see a winged man and she was proud to meet him.”

Ray Bradbury book The October Country

Uncle Einar (1947)
The October Country (1955)

Life , Hurt

“Science-fiction balances you on the cliff. Fantasy shoves you off.”

Ray Bradbury

The Circus of Dr. Lao Introduction (1956)

Science

“The jungle looked back at them with a vastness, a breathing moss-and-leaf silence, with a billion diamond and emerald insect eyes.”

Ray Bradbury

"And the Rock Cried Out" (1953), reprinted in The Day It Rained Forever (1959)

Silence

“Why would you clone people when you can go to bed with them and make a baby? C'mon, it's stupid.”

Ray Bradbury

Salon Magazine (29 August 2001)

People , Stupidity , Baby

“All the sadder that Stone, on the brink of his greatest work, turned one day and went off to live in a town we shall call Obscurity by the sea best named The Past.”

Ray Bradbury book The October Country

The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone (1954)
The October Country (1955)

Past , Sea

“You should read in your own field only when you're young. When I was 8, 10, 12, 16, 25, I read science fiction. But then I went on to Alexander Pope and John Donne and Moliere to mix it up.”

Ray Bradbury

Playboy interview (1996)

Science , Reading

“All silence is.
All emptiness.
And now:
The dawn.”

Ray Bradbury

"Emily Dickinson, where are you? Herman Melville called your name last night in his sleep!" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)

Silence

“Most of the writers I know in any field, especially science fiction, grew up late. They're so interested in doing what they do and in their science, they don't think about other things.”

Ray Bradbury

Playboy interview (1996)

Thinking , Science

“The sun did not rise, it overflowed.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 211

Sun

“He knew that most machines are amoral, neither bad nor good. But by the way you built and shaped them you in turn shaped men, women, and children to be bad or good. A car, for instance, dead brute, unthinking, an unprogrammed bulk, is the greatest destroyer of souls in history. It makes boy-men greedy for power, destruction, and more destruction. It was never intended to do that. But that's how it turned out.”

Ray Bradbury book I Sing the Body Electric

I Sing the Body Electric! (1969)

Women , Men , Children , Cars

“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. … People are talking about the Internet as a creative tool for writers. I say, "B. S. Stay away from that. Stop talking to people around the world and get your work done."”

Ray Bradbury

Playboy interview (1996)

Love , Men , People , World

“As soon as I get an idea, I write a short story, or I start a novel, or I do a poem. So I have no need for a notebook. I do keep files of ideas and stories that didn’t quite work a year ago, five years ago, ten years ago. I come back to them later and I look through the titles.”

Ray Bradbury

The Paris Review interview (2010)

Idea

“The gift of life is so precious that we should feel an obligation to pay back the universe for the gift of being alive.”

Ray Bradbury

Speech at Eureka College (1997)

Life , Feeling , Universe

“Old men only lie in wait for people to ask them to talk. Then they rattle on like a rusty elevator wheezing up a shaft.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Variant: Old men only lie in wait for people to ask them to talk. Then they rattle on like a rusty elevator wheezing up a shaft.
Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 81

Men , People , Lie , Waiting

“There they go, off to Venus, just for the ride, thinking that they will find a planet like a seer's crystal, in which to read a miraculous future. What they'll find, instead, is the somewhat shopworn image of themselves. Mars is a mirror, not a crystal.”

Ray Bradbury

"A Few Notes on The Martian Chronicles", in Rhodomagnetic Digest (May 1950)

Thinking , Reading , Future

“Yahoo called me eight weeks ago. They wanted to put a book of mine on Yahoo! You know what I told them? "To hell with you. To hell with you and to hell with the Internet."”

Ray Bradbury

The New York Times (2009)

Books , Hell

“Mysteries abound where most we seek for answers.”

Ray Bradbury

"All flesh is one: what matter scores?" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)