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THE OCTOBER COUNTRY

Book by Ray Bradbury · 13 quotes · Autumn, Cellars, Country

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THE OCTOBER COUNTRY Quotes

“That country where it is always turning late in the year. That country where the hills are fog and the rivers are mist; where noons go quickly, dusks and twilights linger, and midnights stay. That country composed in the main of cellars, sub-cellars, coal-bins, closets, attics, and pantries faced away from the sun. That country whose people are autumn people, thinking only autumn thoughts. Whose people passing at night on the empty walks sound like rain.”

“I was only twelve. But I knew how much I loved her. It was that love that comes before all significance of body and morals. It was that love that was no more bad than wind and sea and sand lying side by side forever. It was made of all the warm long days together at the beach, and the humming quiet days of droning education at the school. All the long Autumn days of the years past when I carried her books home from school.”

“It was one of those things they keep in a jar in the tent of a sideshow on the outskirts of a little, drowsy town. One of those pale things drifting in alcohol plasma, forever dreaming and circling, with its peeled, dead eyes staring out at you and never seeing you. It went with the noiselessness of late night, and only the crickets chirping, the frogs sobbing off in the moist swampland. One of those things in a big jar that makes your stomach jump as it does when you see a preserved arm in a laboratory vat.”

“More murders are committed at ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit than any other temperature. Over one hundred, it's too hot to move. Under ninety, cool enough to survive. But right at ninety-two degrees lies the apex of irritability, everything is itches and hair and sweat and cooked pork. The brain becomes a rat rushing around a red-hot maze. The least thing - a word, a look, a sound, the drop of a hair and - irritable murder. Irritable murder, there's a pretty and terrifying phrase for you. - Touched with Fire”

“Mom? What do they do in the graveyard, Mom, under the ground? Just lay there?" "Lie there." "Lie there? Is that all they do? It doesn't sound like much fun." "For goodness' sake, it's not made out to be fun." "Why don't they jump up and run around once in a while if they get tired lying there? God's pretty silly--" "Martin!" "Well, you'd think He'd treat people better than to tell them to lie still for keeps. That's impossible. Nobody can do it! I tried once. Dog tries. I tell him, 'dead Dog!' He plays dead awhile, then gets sick and tired and wags his tail or opens one eye and looks at me, bored. Boy, I bet sometimes those graveyard people do the same, huh, Dog?" Dog barked. "Be still with that kind of talk!" said Mother. Martin looked off into space. "Bet that's exactly what they do," he said.”