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Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury Quotes

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Famous Ray Bradbury Quotes

“All flesh is one: what matter scores; Or color of the suit Or if the helmet glints with blue or gold? All is one bold achievement, All is fine spring-found-again-in-autumn day When juices run in antelopes along our blood, And green our flag, forever green...”

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Book:I Live by the Invisible: New & Selected Poems
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“For it is a mad world and it will get madder if we allow the minorities, be they dwarf or giant, orangutan or dolphin, nuclear-head or water-conversationalist, pro-computerologist or Neo-Luddite, simpleton or sage, to interfere with aesthetics. The real world is the playing ground for each and every group, to make or unmake laws. But the tip of the nose of my book or stories or poems is where their rights end and my territorial imperatives begin, run and rule.”

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Book:Fahrenheit 451: Curriculum Unit
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“How men envy and often hate these warm clocks, these wives, who know they will live forever. So what do we do? We men turn terribly mean, because we can't hold to the world or ourselves or anything. We are blind to continuity, all breaks down, falls, melts, stops, rots, or runs away. So, since we cannot shape Time, where does that leave men? Sleepless. Staring.”

KnowsMenWorldMeanDoeRunningHateTurnsFallBreakForeverWifeShapesBlindWarmEnvyClockStaringRunning AwayBreaking DownLeaving MeContinuityLive Forever
Book:Something Wicked This Way Comes
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“They crashed the front door and grabbed at a woman, though she was not running, she was not trying to escape. She was only standing, weaving from side to side, her eyes fixed upon a nothingness in the wall as if they had struck her a terrible blow upon the head. Her tongue was moving in her mouth, and her eyes seemed to be trying to remember something, and then they remembered and her tongue moved again: "Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”

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Book:Fahrenheit 451
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“In sum, do not insult me with the beheadings, finger choppings or the lung-deflations you plan for my works. I need my head to shake or nod, my hand to wave or make into a fist, my lungs to shout or whisper with. I will not go gently onto a shelf, degutted, to become a non-book. All you umpires, back to the bleachers. Referees, hit the showers. It's my game. I pitch, I hit, I catch. I run the bases. At sunset I've won or lost. At sunrise, I'm out again, giving it the old try. And no one can help me. Not even you.”

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Book:Fahrenheit 451: Curriculum Unit
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“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”

InspirationalHeartMomentsMotivationalRunningLastsFriendshipKindnessFriendsMy FriendsPatienceSeriesPreciseReal FriendsFillingVesselTrue FriendTrue FriendshipMy FriendshipAbout FriendshipFriendship MemoriesBest FriendshipInspirational FriendshipMaking FriendsLasting FriendshipInspiring FriendsFriendship GardenNot FriendsFriendship OverThat One FriendUnique Friendship
Author:Ray Bradbury
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“For John was running, and this was terrible. Because if you ran, time ran. You yelled and screamed and raced and rolled and tumbled and all of a sudden the sun was gone and the whistle was blowing and you were on your long way home to supper. When you weren't looking, the sun got around behind you! The only way to keep things slow was to watch everything and do nothing! You could stretch a day to three days, sure, just by watching!”

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Author:Ray Bradbury
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“I got a statistic for you right now. Grab your pencil, Doug. There are five billion trees in the world. I looked it up. Under every tree is a shadow, right? So, then, what makes night? I'll tell you: shadows crawling out from under five billion trees! Think of it! Shadows running around in the air, muddying the waters you might say. If only we could figure a way to keep those darn five billion shadows under those trees, we could stay up half the night, Doug, because there'd be no night!”

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Author:Ray Bradbury
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“The merry-go-round was running, yes, but... It was running backward. The small calliope inside the carousel machinery rattle-snapped its nervous-stallion shivering drums, clashed its harvest-moon cymbals, toothed its castanets, and throatily choked and sobbed its reeds, whistles, and baroque flutes.”

RunningMoonRoundsNervousHarvestMachineryMerryReedsFlutesBaroqueStallionsMerry Go RoundCymbalsCarouselsHarvest Moon
Book:Something Wicked This Way Comes: A Novel
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“Please, please, help me grow to be like them, the ones'll soon be here, who never grow old, can't die, that's what they say, can't die, no matter what, or maybe they died a long time ago but Cecy calls, and Mother and Father call, and Grandmere who only whispers, and now they're coming and I'm nothing, not like them who pass through walls and live in trees or live underneath until seventeen-year rains flood them up and out, and the ones who run in packs, let me be the one! If they live forever, why not me?”

IfsYearsLongMatterHelpingRunningMotherDiesFatherGrowsForeverTreeWallPleaseLong TimeRainLet MeDiedNo Matter WhatHelp MeWhy NotFloodPacksLong Time AgoLive ForeverSeventeenMother And Father
Author:Ray Bradbury
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“You'll be found, your nickels, dimes and Indian-heads fused by electroplating. Abe Lincolns melted into Miss Columbias, eagles plucked raw on the backs of quarters, all run to quicksilver in your jeans. More! Any boy hit by lightning, lift his lid and there on his eyeball, pretty as the Lord's Prayer on a pin, find the last scene the boy ever saw! A box-Brownie photo, by God, of that fire climbing down the sky to blow you like a penny whistle, suck your soul back up along the bright stair!”

SoulRunningLastsFoundPrayerLordBoysFireSawsSkyMissingSceneBlowBoxesYour SoulIndianLiftsClimbingQuartersLightningJeansEaglesPinsStairsPenniesDimesColumbiaNickelsEyeballsBrowniesAbe
Book:Something Wicked This Way Comes
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“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/Republican, Mattachine/FourSquareGospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain porridge unleavened literature, licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme.”

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Book:Fahrenheit 451: A Novel
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“Remember: Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations. Plot is observed after the fact rather than before. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through. That is all Plot ever should be. It is human desire let run, running, and reaching a goal. It cannot be mechanical. It can only be dynamic.”

WayShouldHumansCharacterFactsRunningActionRememberDesireLeftGoalRemainsIncrediblesSnowReachingPlotDestinationFootprintReaching Goals
Author:Ray Bradbury
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“The psychiatrist wants to know why I go out and hike around in the forests and watch the birds and collect butterflies. I'll show you my collection some day.Good.They want to know what I do with my time. I tell them that sometimes I just sit and think. But I won't tell them what. I've got them running. And sometimes, I tell them, I like to put my head back, like this, and let the rain fall in my mouth. It tastes just like wine. Have you ever tried it?”

ThinkingKnowsWantSometimesShowsRunningFallWatchesTasteBirdMouthsRainWineForestsMy TimeCollectionsButterflyPsychiatrist
Book:Fahrenheit 451: A Novel
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