The zipper displaces the button and a man lacks just that much time to think while dressing at dawn, a philosophical hour, and thus a melancholy hour.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on how small changes in our lives can impact our thinking and emotional state, especially during quiet moments.
In this quote, Ray Bradbury contemplates the significance of seemingly trivial details in our daily routines, like choosing between a zipper and a button. The early morning, described as a 'philosophical hour,' is portrayed as a time for reflection, which is often disrupted by the hurried nature of daily life, leading to a sense of melancholy as we rush without taking the time to think deeply.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the impact of daily habits on our mindset.
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.
Play is the exultation of the possible.
Europe is the unfinished negative of which America is the proof.
We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be. The question is not what we can do now for the hypothetical Mexican, the hypothetical Negro. The question is what we really want out of life, for ourselves, what we think is real.
War is not the best way of settling differences; it is the only way of preventing their being settled for you.
Heaven cannot but be high. Earth cannot but be broad. The sun and moon cannot but revolve. All creation cannot but flourish. To do so is their TAO. But it is not from extensive study that this may be known, nor by dialectical skill that his may be made clear. The true sage will have none of these.
The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.
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