1
You're a hopeless romantic, " said Faber. "It would be funny if it were not serious. It's not books you need, it's some of the things that once were in books. The same things could be in the 'parlor families' today. The same infinite detail and awareness could be projected through the radios, and televisors, but are not. No, no it's not books at all you're looking for! Take it where you can find it, in old phonograph records, old motion pictures, and in old friends; look for it in nature and look for it in yourself. Books were only one type or receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us. Of course you couldn't know this, of course you still can't understand what I mean when i say all this. You are intuitively right, that's what counts.Ray Bradbury
2
Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it.Ray Bradbury
3
Don't ask for guarantees. And don't look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.Ray Bradbury
4
Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all.Ray Bradbury
5
Too late, I found you can't wait to become perfect, you got to go out and fall down and get up with everybody else.Ray Bradbury
6
Stuff your eyes with wonder, " he said, "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. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that, " he said, "shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass.Ray Bradbury
7
I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it’ll make sense.Ray Bradbury
8
That's life for you, " said MacDunn. "Someone always waiting for someone who never comes home. Always someone loving some thing more than that thing loves them. And after a while you want to destroy whatever that thing is, so it can't hurt you no more.Ray Bradbury
9
Do you know why books such as this are so important? Because they have quality. And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores. It has features. This book can go under the microscope. You’d find life under the glass, streaming past in infinite profusion. The more pores, the more truthfully recorded details of life per square inch you can get on a sheet of paper, the more ‘literary’ you are. That’s my definition anyway. Telling detail. Fresh detail. 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. So now you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores in the face of life.Ray Bradbury
10
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
11
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
12
Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for.Ray Bradbury
13
First you jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.Ray Bradbury
14
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
15
Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down.Ray Bradbury
16
A good night sleep, or a ten minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.Ray Bradbury
17
Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned 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. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.Ray Bradbury
18
Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones.Ray Bradbury
19
The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.Ray Bradbury
20
But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can't last.Ray Bradbury