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And He Remembered Thinking Then That If She Died, He Was Certain He Wouldn't Cry. For It Would Be The Dying Face Of An Unknown, A Street Face, A Newspaper Image, And It Was Suddenly So Very Wrong That He Had Begun To Cry, Not At Death But At The Thought Of Not Crying At Death, A Silly Empty Man Near A Silly Empty Woman.

-Ray Bradbury

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And He Remembered Thinking

Ray Bradbury

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And He Remembered Thinking Then That If She Died, He Was Certain He Wouldn't Cry. For It Would Be The Dying Face Of An Unknown, A Street Face, A Newspaper Image, And It Was Suddenly So Very Wrong That He Had Begun To Cry, Not At Death But At The Thought Of Not Crying At Death, A Silly Empty Man Near A Silly Empty Woman.

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[his] Library Was A Fine Dark Place Bricked With Books, So Anything Could Happen There And Always Did. All You Had To Do Was Pull A Book From The Shelf And Open It And Suddenly The Darkness Was Not So Dark Anymore.

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Halloween. Sly Does It. Tiptoe Catspaws. Slide And Creep. But Why? What For? How? Who? When! Where Did It All Begin? 'you Don't Know, Do You?' Asks Carapace Clavicle Moundshroud Climbing Out Under The Pile Of Leaves Under The Halloween Tree. 'you Don't Really Know!'

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If We Try To Deny The Darkness In Our Souls Then We'll Become Completely Dark.

Long Before You Knew What Death Was You Were Wishing It On Someone Else.

The Problem In Our Country Isn't With Books Being Banned, But With People No Longer Reading. Look At The Magazines, The Newspapers Around Us - It's All Junk, All Trash, Tidbits Of News. The Average Tv Ad Has 120 Images A Minute. Everything Just Falls Off Your Mind. You Don't Have To Burn Books To Destroy A Culture. Just Get People To Stop Reading Them.

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Those Who Live In The Best Cliffs Think They Are Better Than Us. That Is Always Man's Attitude When He Has Power.

How Men Envy And Often Hate These Warm Clocks, These Wives, Who Know They Will Live Forever. So What Do We Do? We Men Turn Terribly Mean, Because We Can't Hold To The World Or Ourselves Or Anything. We Are Blind To Continuity, All Breaks Down, Falls, Melts, Stops, Rots, Or Runs Away. So, Since We Cannot Shape Time, Where Does That Leave Men? Sleepless. Staring.

You're Peculiar, You're Aggravating, Yet You're Easy To Forgive. You Say You're Seventeen?..how Odd. How Strange. And My Wife Thirty And Yet You Seem So Much Older At Times. I Can't Get Over It.

You Fail Only If You Stop Writing.

Inspiration To Write

To Sum It All Up, If You Want To Write, If You Want To Create, You Must Be The Most Sublime Fool That God Ever Turned Out And Sent Rambling. You Must Write Every Single Day Of Your Life. You Must Write Dreadful Dumb Books And Glorious Books, And Let Them Wrestle In Beautiful Fights Inside Your Head, Vulgar One Moment, Brilliant The Next.

The Years Go By. The Time, It Does Fly. Every Single Second Is A Moment In Time That Passes. And It Seems Like Nothing - But When You're Looking Back ... Well, It Amounts To Everything.

What Is The Subconscious To Every Other Man, In Its Creative Aspect Becomes, For Writers, The Muse.

Marriage Made People Old And Familiar, While Still Young.

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Everything Is Generated Through Your Own Will Power.

The One Sure Way I Can Dishonor Myself Is By Worrying About My Reputation.

Kids Love Me Because I Write Stories That Tell Them About Their Capacity For Evil. I'm One Of The Few Writers Who Lets You Cleanse Yourself That Way.

Do You Know That Books Smell Like Nutmeg Or Some Spice From A Foreign Land? I Loved To Smell Them When I Was A Boy. Lord, There Were A Lot Of Lovely Books Once, Before We Let Them Go.

All Flesh Is One: What Matter Scores; Or Color Of The Suit Or If The Helmet Glints With Blue Or Gold? All Is One Bold Achievement, All Is Fine Spring-found-again-in-autumn Day When Juices Run In Antelopes Along Our Blood, And Green Our Flag, Forever Green...

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Forget Them. Burn All, Burn Everything. Fire Is Bright And Fire Is Clean.

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Chocolate Ice Cream

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The Novel's Not Organized Like A Screenplay. If You Shot The Novel, You'd Have A Twelve-hour Movie.

Like Every Beginner, I Have Thought You Could Beat, Pummel And Thrash An Idea Into Existence. Under Such Treatment, Of Course, Any Decent Idea Folds Up Its Paws, Turns On Its Back, Fixes Its Eyes On Eternity, And Dies.

Maybe The Books Can Get Us Half Out Of The Cave. They Just Might Stop Us From Making The Same Damm Insane Mistakes!

There Is Only One Type Of Story In The World-your Story.

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I'm Being Ironic. Don't Interrupt A Man In The Midst Of Being Ironic, It's Not Polite. There!

I'm Not A Serious Person, And I Don't Like Serious People.

If You Have To Ask Yourself Whether Or Not You Love A Girl Or You Love A Boy, Forget It. You Don't.

Love Is Easy, And I Love Writing. You Can't Resist Love. You Get An Idea, Someone Says Something, And You're In Love.

It Was A Pleasure To Burn.

You've Got To Love Libraries. You've Got To Love Books. You've Got To Love Poetry. You've Got To Love Everything About Literature. Then, You Can Pick The One Thing You Love Most And Write About It.

I Discovered Very Early On That If You Wanted A Thing, You Went For It - And You Got It. Most People Never Go Anywhere, Or Want Anything - So They Never Get Anything.

He Had Never Liked October. Ever Since He Had First Lay In The Autumn Leaves Before His Grandmother's House Many Years Ago And Heard The Wind And Saw The Empty Trees. It Had Made Him Cry, Without A Reason. And A Little Of That Sadness Returned Each Year To Him. It Always Went Away With Spring. But, It Was A Little Different Tonight. There Was A Feeling Of Autumn Coming To Last A Million Years. There Would Be No Spring. ("the October Game")

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.

Recreate The World In Your Own Image And Make It Better For Your Having Been Here.

Notoriety And A Fat Bank Balance Must Come After Everything Else Is Finished And Done.

I've Never Worked A Day In My Life. The Joy Of Writing Has Propelled Me From Day To Day And Year To Year. I Want You To Envy Me, My Joy. Get Out Of Here Tonight And Say: 'am I Being Joyful?' And If You've Got A Writer's Block, You Can Cure It This Evening By Stopping Whatever You're Writing And Doing Something Else. You Picked The Wrong Subject.

When I Graduated From High School I Couldn't Go To College, So I Went To The Library 3 Days A Week For 10 Years.

Write What You Love And Love What You Write.

Doing What You Love

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.

The Critics Are Generally Wrong, Or They're Fifteen, Twenty Years Late. It's A Great Shame. They Miss Out On A Lot.

There's No Use Going To School Unless Your Final Destination Is The Library.

Every Day Is Christmas Day To A Dog.

The Home Environment Can Undo A Lot You Try To Do At School.

I Love You And I Forgive You. I Am Like You And You Are Like Me. I Love All People. I Love The World. I Love Creating. Everything In Our Life Should Be Based On Love.

I Wish You A Wrestling Match With Your Creative Muse That Will Last A Lifetime. ... I Wish Craziness And Foolishness And Madness Upon You. May You Live With Hysteria, And Out Of It Make Fine Stories - Science Fiction Or Otherwise. Which Finally Means, May You Be In Love Every Day For The Next 20,000 Days. And Out Of That Love, Remake A World.

The Local Tv News Is The Greatest Danger In Your Life. It's All Crap.

Creativity Is A Continual Surprise.

I Don't Need An Alarm Clock. My Ideas Wake Me.

His Flesh Took Paleness From His Bones.

We're All Watching Each Other, So There's No Chance For Censorship. The Main Problem Is The Idiot Tv. If You Watch Local News, Your Head Will Turn To Mush.

A Single Face Turned Upward Toward All Time One Flesh, One Ecstasy, One Peace.

Reality And Fiction Are Different In That Fiction Has To Make Sense.

That Country Where It Is Always Turning Late In The Year. That Country Where The Hills Are Fog And The Rivers Are Mist; Where Noons Go Quickly, Dusks And Twilights Linger, And Midnights Stay. That Country Composed In The Main Of Cellars, Sub-cellars, Coal-bins, Closets, Attics, And Pantries Faced Away From The Sun. That Country Whose People Are Autumn People, Thinking Only Autumn Thoughts. Whose People Passing At Night On The Empty Walks Sound Like Rain.

Monday Burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, Burn 'em To Ashes, Then Burn The Ashes. That's Our Official Slogan.

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Richard J. Needham

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