Ray Bradbury quotes

Born
August 22, 1920 Waukegan, Illinois, U.S.

Died
June 5, 2012.

Occupation
Writer.

Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. He worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, and mystery fiction.

Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being?
– Ray Bradbury

I have spent my life going from mania to mania. Somehow it has all paid off.
– Ray Bradbury

We’ve got to dumb America up again.
– Ray Bradbury

Burroughs is crap. Crap.
– Ray Bradbury

I have my favorite cat, who is my paperweight, on my desk while I am writing.
– Ray Bradbury

I got started as an actor when I was 12.
– Ray Bradbury

We’re all dreamers.
– Ray Bradbury

Libraries raised me.
– Ray Bradbury

It’s lack that gives us inspiration. It’s not fullness.
– Ray Bradbury

The Internet is a big distraction.
– Ray Bradbury

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.
– Ray Bradbury

If you don’t like what you’re doing, then don’t do it.
– Ray Bradbury

I write screenplays in the middle of the night.
– Ray Bradbury

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.
– Ray Bradbury

‘Fahrenheit 451’ postulates a lot of things I didn’t want to have happen.
– Ray Bradbury

All my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.
– Ray Bradbury

Bo Derek is a really good friend of mine, and I’d like to spend more time with her.
– Ray Bradbury

I don’t try to describe the future. I try to prevent it.
– Ray Bradbury

Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don’t do that.
– Ray Bradbury

I couldn’t go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.
– Ray Bradbury

You can write a short story in two hours. Two hours a day, you have a novel in a year.
– Ray Bradbury

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.
– 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

Everything is generated through your own will power.
– Ray Bradbury

When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money.
– Ray Bradbury

I’ve been afraid of people playing their life away with too many toys.
– Ray Bradbury

I believe in libraries because most students don’t have any money.
– Ray Bradbury

I don’t need to be vindicated, and I don’t want attention.
– Ray Bradbury

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.
– Ray Bradbury

The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.
– Ray Bradbury

I love all of the arts. I love motion pictures. I love stage. I love theater.
– 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

You don’t have to turn on the TV set. You don’t have to work on the Internet. It’s up to you.
– Ray Bradbury

I discovered me in the library. I went to find me in the library.
– 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

You fail only if you stop writing.
– Ray Bradbury

We’ve gotta reinvest in space travel. We should’ve never left the moon.
– Ray Bradbury

I used to take my short stories to girls’ homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?
– Ray Bradbury

I don’t do research. I never have.
– Ray Bradbury

Electronic books are junk.
– Ray Bradbury

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.
– Ray Bradbury

The answer I found is you stay away from the people who make fun of you, and you join these ad hoc groups who understand your craziness.
– Ray Bradbury

There is too much government today. We’ve got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.
– Ray Bradbury

You pay a certain penalty for going your own way. A lot of people think you’re nuts, and you’re not as popular with girls as you should be.
– 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

Collecting facts is important. Knowledge is important. But if you don’t have an imagination to use the knowledge, civilization is nowhere.
– Ray Bradbury

There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.
– Ray Bradbury

I hate all politics. I don’t like either political party. One should not belong to them – one should be an individual, standing in the middle. Anyone that belongs to a party stops thinking.
– 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

The important thing is to be in love with something.
– Ray Bradbury

If an idea isn’t exciting, you shouldn’t do it.
– Ray Bradbury

If you want to find the source of much of the music of modern day Russia, you will find it in the incredible compositions of that crazed lunatic Berlioz.
– Ray Bradbury

All the women in my life have been librarians, English teachers and book sellers.
– Ray Bradbury

In Hollywood, they think they know it all. You, as a writer, are essentially an outsider. Novelists and short-story writers, especially.
– Ray Bradbury

I think we’re doing a dreadful job of educating.
– Ray Bradbury

If you’re living in your time, you cannot help but to write about the things that are important.
– Ray Bradbury

When I was born in 1920, the auto was only 20 years old. Radio didn’t exist. TV didn’t exist. I was born at just the right time to write about all of these things.
– 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

We have too many cellphones. We’ve got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.
– Ray Bradbury

I never ask anyone else’s opinion. They don’t count.
– Ray Bradbury

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.
– Ray Bradbury

You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
– 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

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.
– Ray Bradbury

I’m not a serious person, and I don’t like serious people.
– Ray Bradbury