Quotes By Ray Bradbury

It's lack that gives us inspiration. It's not fullness.

I don't believe in colleges and universities.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don't know how to read, you don't know how to decide. That's the great thing about our country - we're a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

We have too many cellphones. We've got too many internets. We have got to get rid of those machines. We have too many machines now.

You've got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.

My stories run up and bite me on the leg - I respond by writing down everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off.

I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it.

I think the reason my stories have been so successful is that I have a strong sense of metaphor.

All of us, no matter how we look born into this world, feel something like the Hunchback. It doesn't matter if you have a beautiful face or not.

If you're living in your time, you cannot help but to write about the things that are important.

My religion encompasses all religions. I believe in God, I believe in the universe. I believe you are god, I believe I am god; I believe the earth is god and the universe is god. We're all god.

Why go to a machine when you could go to a human being?

Love is the answer to everything. It's the only reason to do anything. If you don't write stories you love, you'll never make it. If you don't write stories that other people love, you'll never make it.

I don't see myself as a philosopher. That's awfully boring.

We're all dreamers.

The great fun in my life has been getting up every morning and rushing to the typewriter because some new idea has hit me.

Ideas excite me, and as soon as I get excited, the adrenaline gets going and the next thing I know I'm borrowing energy from the ideas themselves.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

The answer to all writing, to any career for that matter, is love.

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it's better than college. People should educate themselves - you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I'd written a thousand stories.

Libraries raised me.

Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.

I felt a bit bookish, cut off from life.

I used to take my short stories to girls' homes and read them to them. Can you imagine the reaction reading a short story to a girl instead of pawing her?

There is too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people, and for the people.

We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

My personal telephone book is a book of the dead now. I'm so old. Almost all of my friends have died, and I don't have the guts to take their names out of the book.

The first stories I wrote when I was 12 were about Mars and landing on Mars.