“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 , book The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Murderer (1953)
The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)
Context: Then I went in and shot the televisor, 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, but myself always going back, going back hoping and waiting until—bang!

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Ray Bradbury 401

American writer 1920–2012

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“Then I went in and shot the televisor, 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, but myself always going back, going back hoping and waiting until—bang!”

Ray Bradbury book The Golden Apples of the Sun

The Murderer (1953)
The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953)

“When people call this beast to mind,
They marvel more and more
At such a LITTLE tail behind,
So LARGE a trunk before.”

Hilaire Belloc book The Bad Child's Book of Beasts

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“The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

“A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.”

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) American art collector and experimental writer of novels, poetry and plays

Wars I Have Seen (1945)

“I found myself staring at her, which was stupid since I'd seen her a billion times. Still, she seemed so much more mature. It was kind of intimidating. I mean, sure, she'd always been cute, but she was starting to be seriously beautiful.”

Rick Riordan book The Last Olympian

Source: The Last Olympian

“I never said it. Honest. Oh, I said there are maybe 100 billion galaxies and 10 billion trillion stars. It's hard to talk about the Cosmos without using big numbers. I said 'billion' many times on the Cosmos television series, which was seen by a great many people. But I never said 'billions and billions.' For one thing, it's imprecise. How many billions are 'billions and billions'? A few billion? Twenty billion? A hundred billion? 'Billions and billions' is pretty vague… For a while, out of childish pique, I wouldn't utter the phrase, even when asked to. But I've gotten over that. So, for the record, here it goes: 'Billions and billions.”

Carl Sagan (1934–1996) American astrophysicist, cosmologist, author and science educator

List of misquotations
Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millenium (1997)

“Incredibly, at this critical juncture in financial history, after which so much changed so quickly, the only constraint in the subprime mortgage market was a shortage of people willing to bet against it.”

Michael Lewis book The Big Short

Source: The Big Short (2010), Chapter Three, " How Can A Guy Who Can't Speak English Lie?", p. 80

“We have 7 billion people on this planet. It’s not that there’s not enough room on this planet for 7 billion people, it’s that the energy needs for 7 billion people are 7 billion people’s worth of energy needs, as opposed to, say, 2 billion. Imagine how much pollution would be in the air and the oceans if there were only 2 billion people putting it in? So yeah, we’re already overpopulated.”

Morgan Freeman (1937) American actor, film director, and narrator

Source: [Stern, Marlow, Janbuary 28, 2014, Morgan Freeman on God, Satan, and How the Human Race Has ‘Become A Parasite’, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/morgan-freeman-kerry-washington-celebrate-oscars-science-at-breakthrough-prize-ceremony-1064160, The Daily Beast, New York, December 4, 2017]

“You seem to have dreamt on the white stone, in the midst of the people of dreams, since you dreamt so long a dream in the course of so short a night.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Source: The White Stone (1905), Ch. VI, p. 237

“We had so little to eat, we were freezing all the time, but the sheer joy of being able to act fed our souls.”

Hana Maria Pravda (1916–2008) British actress

Quoted in "Holocaust diarist is played by actress granddaughter", Dalya info Evening Standard, Dri 11 Jan 2013 p. 29

“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.”

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