Ray Bradbury Quotes About Giving

Quotes about: Giving

Acting Adventure Age Animals Architecture Art Atmosphere

I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can't really put a book on the Internet. Three companies have offered to put books by me on the Net, and I said, 'If you can make something that has a nice jacket, nice paper with that nice smell, then we'll talk.' All the computer can give you is a manuscript. People don't want to read manuscripts. They want to read books. Books smell good. They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your pocket.

Ray Bradbury

Nice, Book, Smell
If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.

Ray Bradbury

Men, Two Sides, Giving

Ray Bradbury (2016). “Fahrenheit 451”, p.29, Hamilton Books
I've never been in charge of my stories, they've always been in charge of me. As each new one has called to me, ordering me to give it voice and form and life, I've followed the advice I've shared with other writers over the years: jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

Years, Wings, Voice

Ray Bradbury (2000). “Bradbury Stories”
We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe. If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal.

Ray Bradbury

Life, Stars, Giving

Speech to National School Board Association, 1995.
An athlete may run ten thousand miles in order to prepare for one hundred yards. Quantity gives experience.

Ray Bradbury

Running, Athlete, Order
Facts quite often, I fear to confess, like lawyers, put me to sleep at noon. Not theories, however. Theories are invigorating and tonic. Give me an ounce of fact and I will produce you a ton of theory by tea this afternoon. That is, after all, my job.

Ray Bradbury

Jobs, Sleep, Giving

Ray Bradbury (1973). “Mars and the mind of man”
The women in my life have all been librarians, English teachers, or booksellers. If they couldn't speak pidgin Tolstoy, articulate Henry James, or give me directions to Usher and Ox, it was no go. I have always longed for education, and pillow talk's the best.

Ray Bradbury

Teacher, Giving, Speak

Foreword to "A Passion for Books" by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan, 1999.
The human race likes to give itself airs. One good volcano can produce more greenhouse gases in a year than the human race has in its entire history.

Ray Bradbury

Science, Race, Volcanoes
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.

Ray Bradbury

Running, Sunset, Games

Ray Bradbury (1990). “Fahrenheit 451: Curriculum Unit”
That's the wonderful thing about man; he never gets so discouraged or disgusted that he gives up doing it all over again, because he knows very well it is important and WORTH the doing.

Ray Bradbury

Giving Up, Men, Important

Ray Bradbury (2016). “Fahrenheit 451”, p.74, Hamilton Books
Americans are far more remarkable than we give ourselves credit for. We've been so busy damning ourselves for years. We've done it all, and yet we don't take credit for it.

Ray Bradbury

Years, Giving, Credit
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.

Ray Bradbury

Running, Book, Sunset

Ray Bradbury (1990). “Fahrenheit 451: Curriculum Unit”
What is it about fire that's so lovely? No matter what age we are, what draws us to it?...The thing man wanted to invent, but never did...If you let it go on, it'd burn our lifetimes out. What is fire? It is a mystery. Scientists give us gobbledygook about friction and molecules. But they don't really know. Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences.

Ray Bradbury

Real, Responsibility, Men
Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy.

Ray Bradbury

Philosophy, Lying, Moving

Ray Bradbury (2016). “Fahrenheit 451”, p.30, Hamilton Books
This was all he wanted now. Some signs that the immense world would accept him and give him the long time he needed to think all the things that must be thought.

Ray Bradbury

Thinking, Long, Giving

Ray Bradbury (2016). “Fahrenheit 451”, p.69, Hamilton Books
It's lack that gives us inspiration. It's not fullness.

Ray Bradbury

Inspiration, Giving, Fullness

"Ray Bradbury: 'It's Lack That Gives Us Inspiration'". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. June 8, 2012.
Forgive, I hope you won't be upset, but when I was a boy I used to look up and see you behind your desk, so near but far away, and, how can I say this, I used to think that you were Mrs. God, and that the library was a whole world, and that no matter what part of the world or what people or thing I wanted to see and read, you'd find and give it to me.

Ray Bradbury

Boys, Thinking, Giving
People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these.

Ray Bradbury

Fun, Moving, People

Ray Bradbury (2012). “Fahrenheit 451: A Novel”, p.56, Simon and Schuster
My stories are warnings; they're not predictions. If they were predictions, I wouldn't do them. Because then I'd be part of the doom-ridden psychology. But every time I name a problem, I try to give a solution.

Ray Bradbury

Names, Giving, Psychology

Ray Bradbury, Steven L. Aggelis (2004). “Conversations with Ray Bradbury”, p.131, Univ. Press of Mississippi
The world doesn't give a damn about you unless you do something. Those are the rules; I didn't make them. If you are lazy, if you don't get the work that you love done, the world won't care if you die tomorrow and go into the grave and are gone and forgotten forever.

Ray Bradbury

Giving, Forever, Lazy

Source: www.tangentonline.com
To solve the drug problem, we have to start at the root - first grade. If a boy has all the toys in his head that reading can give him, and you hook him into science fiction, then you've got the future secured.

Ray Bradbury

Reading, Boys, Roots

Source: www.raybradbury.com
Programs like 'Jeopardy' and 'Who Wants to Be a Millionaire' are ridiculous. They're the stupidest shows in history. They're making us dumber. They don't give us information, they give us facts, factoids. You don't learn who Napoleon was and how he was motivated. You learn what year he was born, and when he died. That's useless.

Ray Bradbury

Years, Giving, Useless
Why all this insistence on the senses? Because in order to convince your reader that he is THERE, you must assault each of his senses, in turn, with color, sound, taste, and texture. If your reader feels the sun on his flesh, the wind fluttering his shirt sleeves, half your fight is won. The most improbable tales can be made believable, if your reader, through his senses, feels certain that he stands at the middle of events. He cannot refuse, then, to participate. The logic of events always gives way to the logic of the senses.

Ray Bradbury

Fighting, Order, Color
Evil has only the power we give it.

Ray Bradbury

Evil, Giving
When you write - explode - fly apart - disintegrate! Then give time enough to think, cut, rework, and rewrite.

Ray Bradbury

Writing, Cutting, Thinking

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Born: August 22, 1920
Died: June 5, 2012
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

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