Quotessence
Home / Authors / Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

Famous Ray Bradbury Quotes

“This, I think, should answer why I have more often than not written stories which, for a convenient label, are called science fiction. There are few literary fields, it seems to me, that deal so strikingly with themes that concern us all today; there are few more exciting genres; there are none fresher or so full of continually renewed and renewable concepts. It is, after all, the fiction of ideas, the fiction where philosophy can be tinkered with, torn apart, and put back together again, it is the fiction of sociology and psychology and history compounded and squared by time. It is the fiction where you may set up and knock down your own political and religious and moral states. It can be a high form of Swiss watch-making. It can be poetry. It has resulted in some of the greatest writing in our past, from Plato and Lucian to Sir Thomas More and François Rabelais and on down through Jonathan Swift and Johannes Kepler to Poe and Edward Bellamy and George Orwell....”

“On doit tous être pareils. Nous ne naissons pas libres et égaux, comme le proclame la Constitution, on nous rend égaux. Chaque homme doit être l'image de l'autre, comme ça, tout le monde est content; plus de montagnes pour les intimider, leur donner un point de comparaison. Conclusion ! Un livre est un fusil chargé dans la maison d'à côté. Brûlons-le. Déchargeons l'arme. Battons en brèche l'esprit humain. Qui sait qui pourrait être la cible de l'homme cultivé ?”

“—Me parece que los marcianos eran bastante ingenuos. —Sólo cuando les convenía. Renunciaron a empeñarse en destruirlo todo, humillarlo todo. Combinaron la religión, arte y ciencia, pues en verdad la ciencia no es más que la investigación de un milagro inexplicable, y el arte, la interpretación de ese milagro. No permitieron que la ciencia aplastara la belleza.”

“—Yo iba a embarcar en el último cohete, pero preferí quedarme, ¿sabes por qué? —¿Por qué? —Porque todos se metían conmigo. Por eso me quedé; para echarme perfume encima el día entero y beber diez mil cervezas y comer dulces y bombones sin que la gente me esté diciendo "¡Oh, cuidado, eso tiene muchas calorías!". Y aquí estoy. —Y aquí estás.”

“—Ha muerto. El corazón. —Lo lamento. —¿Cómo se siente? —Hathaway no quería que nos sintiéramos mal. Nos dijo que esto ocurriría en cualquier momento, y no quería que lloráramos. No nos enseñó a llorar. No quería que supiéramos hacerlo. Según él, nada peor puede ocurrirle a un hombre que saber cómo estar solo, y cómo estar triste, y ponerse a llorar.”

“There are two races of people -- men and women -- no matter what women's libbers would have you pretend. The male is motivated by toys and science because men are born with no purpose in the universe except to procreate. There is lots of time to kill beyond that. They've got to find work. Men have no inherent center to themselves beyond procreating. Women, however, are born with a center. They can create the universe, mother it, teach it, nurture it. Men read science fiction to build the future. Women don't need to read it. They are the future.”

“As a result of reading science fiction when I was eight, I grew up with an interest in music, architecture, city planning, transportation, politics, ethics, aesthetics on any level, art...it's just total! It's a complete commitment to the whole human race on all the Earth. That's what science fiction is about.”

“There are certain kinds of people who write science fiction. I think a lot of us married late. A lot of us are mama's boys. I lived at home until I was 27. But most of the writers I know in any field, especially science fiction, grew up late. They're so interested in doing what they do and in their science, they don't think about other things.”

“I define science fiction as the art of the possible. Fantasy is the art of the impossible. Science fiction, again, is the history of ideas, and they're always ideas that work themselves out and become real and happen in the world. And fantasy comes along and says, 'We're going to break all the laws of physics.' ... Most people don't realize it, but the series of films which have made more money than any other series of films in the history of the universe is the James Bond series. They're all science fiction, too - romantic, adventurous, frivolous, fantastic science fiction!”

“Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn't exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible.”

“I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. ... I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories - science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”