It may be known as Dystopia but for me and probably for many of you too, Ray Bradbury wrote every reader’s nightmare horror novel when he penned Fahrenheit 451. Born on August 22nd in Waukegan, Illinois Ray Bradbury always knew he was ‘going to go into the arts’ and he began writing short stories at the tender age of eleven, often on butcher’s paper which, in the middle of the Great Depression, was often the only paper available to him.
When Bradbury’s poor eyesight exempted him from military duties during the second world war, he was free to do what he wanted, and he wanted to write and by the end of 1942 he was a full time writer. A favourite author of many, here are 10 quotes from Ray Bradbury to set the world alight.
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”
“You must write every single day of your life… You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads… may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
“There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”
“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.”
“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door…Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?”
“There’s no use going to school unless your final destination is the library.”
“Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.”
“Love what you do and do what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.”
“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”
Ray Bradbury died in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91, after a lengthy illness. His personal library was willed to the Waukegan Public Library, where he had many of his formative reading experiences.
If you’ve never read anything by Ray, you’re missing out. Take a look through his bibliography and add him to your list of ‘must read’ authors.
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