Ray Bradbury: Quotes about life

Ray Bradbury was American writer. Explore interesting quotes on life.
Ray Bradbury: 802 quotes18 likes

“He knew what the wind was doing to them, where it was taking them, to all the secret places that were never so secret again in life.”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes

“I’m not afraid. When you live as long as I’ve lived, you lose that, too. I never liked lobster in my life, and mainly because I’d never tried it. On my eightieth birthday I tried it. I can’t say I’m greatly excited over lobster still, but I have no doubt as to its taste now, and I don’t fear it. I dare say death will be a lobster, too, and I can come to terms with it.”

Ray Bradbury book Dandelion Wine

Source: Dandelion Wine (1957), p. 150

“When I started writing seriously, I made the major discovery of my life — that I am right and everybody else is wrong if they disagree with me. What a great thing to learn: Don't listen to anyone else, and always go your own way.”

Ray Bradbury

Playboy interview (1996)

“We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe…. If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal.”

Ray Bradbury

Speech to National School Board Association (1995)

“A life's work should be based on love.”

Ray Bradbury

Barnes & Nobel Santa Monica Promenade Book Signing (2008)[citation needed]

““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)

“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)

“There is no reason to write pornography when your own sex life is good. Why waste time writing about it?”

Ray Bradbury

Playboy interview (1996)

““War!”
The thought stood in Sim’s brain. It shocked and beat at him. These men were running to fight, to kill, over there in those small black cliffs where other people lived.
But why? Wasn’t life short enough without fighting and killing?”

Ray Bradbury book R Is for Rocket

Frost and Fire (1946)
R Is for Rocket (1962)

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

Ray Bradbury

Personal lessons from futurist Ray Bradbury on crying, escaping, laughing, by Mick Mortlock; Oregon Live (6 June 2012) http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/06/personal_lessons_from_futurist.html

“Summertime, 1950, I recognized Isherwood browsing in a Santa Monica bookstore. My book had just come out, so I grabbed a copy off the shelf, signed it and gave it to him. His face fell and my heart sank, but two days later he called and said, "Do you know what you've done?" I asked, "What?" And he simply told me to read his review in the Times. His rave turned my life around; the book immediately made the best-seller lists and has been in print ever since.
He was very kind in introducing me to various people he thought I should know, like Aldous Huxley, who had been my literary hero since Brave New World came out.”

Ray Bradbury

On the chance meeting with Christopher Isherwood just after publication of The Martian Chronicles which led to fame and acclaim outside of SF fandom.
Playboy interview (1996)

“I’ve done a prideful thing, a thing more sinful than she ever done to me. I took the bottom out of her life.”

Ray Bradbury book The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Great Wide World Over There (1953)
The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)

“For some, autumn comes early, stays late through life where October follows September and November touches October and then instead of December and Christ's birth, there is no Bethlehem star, no rejoicing, but September comes again and old October and so on down the years, with no winter, spring, or revivifying summer. For these beings, fall is the ever normal season, the only weather, there be no choice beyond. Where do they come from? The dust. Where do they go? The grave. Does blood stir their veins? No: the night wind. What ticks in their head? The worm. What speaks from their mouth? The toad. What sees from their eye? The snake. What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars. They sift the human storm for souls, eat flesh of reason, fill tombs with sinners. They frenzy forth. In gusts they beetle-scurry, creep, thread, filter, motion, make all moons sullen, and surely cloud all clear-run waters. The spider-web hears them, trembles -- breaks. Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.”

Ray Bradbury book Something Wicked This Way Comes

Source: Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), Chapter 38

“At the center of religion is love. I love you and I forgive you. I am like you and you are like me. I love all people. I love the world. I love creating. Everything in our life should be based on love.”

Ray Bradbury

As quoted in "Sci-fi legend "Ray Bradbury on God, 'monsters and angels'" by John Blake, CNN : Living (2 August 2010) http://articles.cnn.com/2010-08-02/living/Bradbury_1_ray-bradbury-dandelion-wine-sam-weller?_s=PM:LIVING, p. 1

“The women in my life have all been librarians, English teachers, or booksellers. If they couldn't speak pidgin Tolstoy, articulate Henry James, or give me directions to Usher and Ox, it was no go. I have always longed for education, and pillow talk's the best.”

Ray Bradbury

Foreword to A Passion for Books (1999) by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan