Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.
Interpretation
Libraries are essential for preserving knowledge and culture, linking us to our history and future.
Ray Bradbury's quote emphasizes the critical role libraries play in society as repositories of knowledge and culture. Without libraries, we would lack a connection to our past and the resources necessary to inform our future, highlighting the importance of access to books and information for the growth and development of individuals and communities.
In practice
During a speech at a local school, I quoted Bradbury to emphasize the importance of funding our community library.
I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. Ray Bradbury, 1967 interview (Doing the Math - that means for every story he sold, he wrote six "un-publishable" ones. Keep typing!)
I never went to college, so I went to the library.
There must be something in books, something we canβt imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You donβt stay for nothing.
I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.
The first thing a writer should be is - excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it'd be better for his health.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
In our time, the curse is monetary illiteracy, just as inability to read plain print was the curse of earlier centuries.
While my parents never had the time or money to secure university education themselves, they were adamant that their children should. In comfort and in love, we were taught the joys of knowledge and of work well done. I only regret that neither my mother nor my father could live to see the day I would accept the Nobel Prize.
I could undertake to be an efficient pupil if it were possible to find an efficient teacher.
You must somehow understand that we as horsemen can do very little to teach the horse. What we can do is to create an environment in which he can learn.
In golf, no one learns to hit a draw, a fade, or a cut shot until they've been taught how to hit the ball straight. Similarly, novice poker players need to learn how to 'hit it straight' before taking on more difficult concepts.
Good teachers teach. Great teachers transform.
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