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Quote by Ray Bradbury

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I Sing the Body Electric! & Other Stories

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Author

Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury, born on August 22, 1920, and died on June 5, 2012, was an influential American science fiction writer, playwright, and poet. His works are known for their unique imagination and profound philosophical insights, which have had a profound impact on the science fiction genre. more

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“The present becomes the past through increments too small to measure; suddenly something that is becomes something that was, and the way we live is not the way we lived. So much of what changed is hard for those who lived through it to remember and those who came after to imagine. In many parts of American society, kindness has increasingly become a criterion applied to all forms of interaction, but its absence before was elusive, because it's too easy to not notice who and what is not in the room.”

“Next, the secretary advised me to take a seat while she notified the headmaster of my arrival. During those dreadful moments I did everything I could to remain calm. Nervously, I kept patting my foot to the floor and heard each and every tap. Suddenly, shouts of extreme havoc rung out just like the other times! “Oh God no! Jesus, please help me Lawd! I got you, Sir, I got you,” were screams filling the airwaves. The door opened and a battered female raced rightpast me with her hands covering her face. She kept mumbling phrases that shouldn’t be repeated by innocent lips. I couldn’t believe those disgusting words coming out of her baby-sized mouth. Then damn, another nightmare was possibly moments away. I needed an out and fast. Fearing for my life, I formulated my plan of action. Right before Principal Shellshock steadies his paddle, I was going to blow out all the gas I reserved in my little butt. I was never a fan of the fart game, but I was scheming like a veteran. That’s all I had, and it was my “A game.” My intentions were to rip a good hard one that opens my belt, ruffles my pants, and sends my new shoes flyingacross the room. Then all options would be left to the principal. He could chance tearing into me and losing a lung or take cover and let me go. Punishing me will become a hazard to his health. For the moment, I felt really good about that notion. I didn’t have much else to cling to, but I was dangerously packing breakfast from Aunt Kathy. Yes, I was sure my stink bomb defense would win that day. According to past reports, I would be the first and only kid at Mitchell Memorial to get on the scoreboard against the headmaster. Make that, Hal “1” and Principal Shell Shock “0.”

“It is in the utter exhaustion born of my battle with fear and trauma that all pretense and pretending is methodically stripped away. And although that process seems callously brutal, its intent is to leave me facing the rank ugliness of my weakness without the debilitating filter of denial or other such maladies. And it is in this place of excruciating rawness that I now have sufficient pain and ample frustration to compel me to change that which I’ve spent a lifetime cultivating.”

“Persistence used to be his goal; perhaps, he once believed, if he endured more days, eventually life would come together, either ultimately or through a single event. Books and art and politics said to keep going. But while persistence was other men’s answer, their conflicts were not his. How could a man totally trust history’s advice when today, the sparrow breaks its old route and flies over that jacaranda tree and not the usual? Persistence was not Andrei’s answer. He needed deviation.”

“Markets change all the time and our job is to change with them.. Remember, planning is a tool that only works in the presence of a long and stable operating history. And yet, do any of us feel that the world around us is getting more and more stable every day?”