Ray Bradbury

I don't believe in being serious about anything. I think life is too serious to be taken seriously.

I take this continent with me into the grave.

They whispered to Caesar that he was mortal, then sold daggers at half-price in the grand March sale.

Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.

...We're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, someday it will come in and get us, for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be.

Do you understand now why books are hated and feared? Because they reveal the pores on the face of life. The comfortable people want only the faces of the full moon, wax, faces without pores, hairless, expressionless.

...passing swiftly on toward further darknesses, but moving also toward a new sun.

The father hesitated only a moment. He felt the vague pain in his chest. If I run, he thought, what will happen? Is Death important? No. Everything that happens before Death is what counts. And we've done fine tonight. Even Death can't spoil it.

And I saw then and there you take a man half-bad and a women half-bad and put their two good halves together and you got one human all good to share between.

Somewhere in him, a shadow turned mournfully over. You had to run with a night like this so the sadness could not hurt

Why love the woman who is your wife? Her nose breathes in the air of a world that I know; therefore I love that nose. Her ears hear music I might sing half the night through; therefore I love her ears. Her eyes delight in seasons of the land; and so I love those eyes. Her tongue knows quince, peach, chokeberry, mint and lime; I love to hear it speaking. Because her flesh knows heat, cold, affliction, I know fire, snow, and pain. Shared and once again shared experience.

Savory...that's a swell word. And Basil and Betel. Capsicum. Curry. All great. But Relish, now, Relish with a capital R. No argument, that' the best.

What do you do, go around trying everything once?' he asked. 'Sometimes twice.

Grandfather's been dead all these years, but if you lifted my skull, by God, in the convolutions of my brain you'd find the big ridges of his thumbprint. He touched me. As I said earlier, he was a sculptor. 'I hate a Roman named Status Quo!' he said to me. 'Stuff your eyes with wonder,' he said, 'live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.

I often wonder if God recognizes His own son the way we've dressed him up, or is it dressed him down?

It takes writing a billion bad words before you get to the good ones.

Far away, in the meadow, shadows flickered in the Mirror's Maze, as if parts of someone's life, yet unborn, were trapped there, waiting to be lived.

The train skimmed on softly, slithering, black pennants fluttering, black confetti lost on its own sick-sweet candy wind, down the hill, with the two boys pursuing, the air was so cold they ate ice cream with each breath.

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.

I'm not anyone, I'm just myself; whatever I am, I am something, and now I'm something you can't help.

The first thing you learn in life is you're a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you're the same fool.