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But Most Of All, I Like To Watch People. Sometimes I Ride The Subway All Day And Look At Them And Listen To Them. I Just Want To Figure Out Who They Are And What They Want And Where They Are Going. Sometimes I Even Go To Fun Parks And Ride In The Jet Cars When They Race On The Edge Of Town At Midnight And The Police Don't Care As Long As They're Insured. As Long As Everyone Has Ten Thousand Insurance Everyone's Happy. Sometimes I Sneak Around And Listen In Subways. Or I Listen At Soda Fountains, And Do You Know What? People Don't Talk About Anything.

-Ray Bradbury

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But Most Of All,

Ray Bradbury

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But Most Of All, I Like To Watch People. Sometimes I Ride The Subway All Day And Look At Them And Listen To Them. I Just Want To Figure Out Who They Are And What They Want And Where They Are Going. Sometimes I Even Go To Fun Parks And Ride In The Jet Cars When They Race On The Edge Of Town At Midnight And The Police Don't Care As Long As They're Insured. As Long As Everyone Has Ten Thousand Insurance Everyone's Happy. Sometimes I Sneak Around And Listen In Subways. Or I Listen At Soda Fountains, And Do You Know What? People Don't Talk About Anything.

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Write 1000 Words A Day. That's Only About Four Pages, But Force Yourself To Do It. Put Your Finger Down Your Throat And Throw Up. That's What Writing's All About.

Get The Big Truth First. If You Get The Big Truth, The Small Truths Will Accumulate Around It.

Quantity Produces Quality. If You Only Write A Few Things, You're Doomed.

When I Finished [writing It], I Was Crying. I Knew At Long Last, After Ten Years Of Trying, I Had Written Something Good.

But With The Library, It's Like Catnip, I Suppose: You Begin To Run In Circles Because There's So Much To Look At And Read.

I Am Madness Maddened When It Comes To Books, Writers, And The Great Granary Silos Where Their Wits Are Stored.

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.

All You Umpires, Back To The Bleachers. Referees, Hit The Showers. It's My Game. I Pitch, I Hit, I Catch. I Run The Bases. At Sunset, I've Won Or Lost. At Sunrise, I'm Out Again, Giving It The Old Try.

I'll Tell You," Said Beatty, Smiling At His Cards. "that Made You For A Little While A Drunkard. Read A Few Lines And Off You Go Over The Cliff. Bang, You're Ready To Blow Up The World, Chop Off Heads, Knock Down Women And Children, Destroy Authority. I Know. I've Been Through It All.

I Have Total Recall. I Remember Being Born. I Remember Being In The Womb, I Remember Being Inside. Coming Out Was Great.

Live As If You'd Drop Dead In Ten Seconds.

It Was In Their Friendship They Just Wanted To Run Forever, Shadow And Shadow.

He Lay Far Across The Room From Her, On A Winter Island Separated By An Empty Sea. She Talked To Him For What Seemed A Long While And She Talked About This And She Talked About That And It Was Only Words, Like The Words He Had Heard Once In A Nursery At A Friend's House, A Two-year-old Child Building Word Patters, Like Jargon, Making Pretty Sounds In The Air.

Not To Write, For Many Of Us, Is To Die. We Must Take Ares Each And Every Day, Perhaps Knowing That The Battle Cannot Be Entirely Won, But Fight We Must, If Only A Gentle Bout. The Smallest Effort To Win Means, At The End Of Each Day, A Sort Of Victory.

You Don't Organize Metaphors . . . You Explode Them.

You Can’t Learn To Write In College. It’s A Very Bad Place For Writers Because The Teachers Always Think They Know More Than You Do-and They Don’t. They Have Prejudices.

It's Rare You Get An Idea From A Dream. I Can't Really Recall A Story That Ever Worked Out That Way. I Think In 35 Years Of Writing, That I've Ever Had A Dream That Held Up. They're Much Too Dislocated

Surprise Is Where Creativity Comes In.

"oh, Ancient God, Whatever Your Name," Whispered Ahmed. "help This Lost Son Of A Good Father, This Evil Boy Who Meant No Harm But Slept In School, Ran Errands Slowly, Did Not Pray From His Heart, Ignored His Mother, And Did Not Hold His Family In Great Esteem. For All This I Know I Must Suffer. But Here In The Midst Of Silence, At The Desert's Heart, Where Even The Wind Knows Not My Name? Must I Die So Young? Am I To Be Forgotten Without Having Been?"

In Science Fiction, We Dream. In Order To Colonize In Space, To Rebuild Our Cities, Which Are So Far Out Of Whack, To Tackle Any Number Of Problems, We Must Imagine The Future, Including The New Technologies That Are Required.

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

Every Story I've Written Was Written Because I Had To Write It. Writing Stories Is Like Breathing For Me; It Is My Life.

Science Fiction Is The Most Important Literature In The History Of The World, Because It's The History Of Ideas, The History Of Our Civilization Birthing Itself. ...science Fiction Is Central To Everything We've Ever Done, And People Who Make Fun Of Science Fiction Writers Don't Know What They're Talking About.

As A Result Of Reading Science Fiction When I Was Eight, I Grew Up With An Interest In Music, Architecture, City Planning, Transportation, Politics, Ethics, Aesthetics On Any Level, Art...it's Just Total! It's A Complete Commitment To The Whole Human Race On All The Earth. That's What Science Fiction Is About.

I Define Science Fiction As The Art Of The Possible. Fantasy Is The Art Of The Impossible.

Sometimes You Just Have To Jump Out The Window And Grow Wings On The Way Down.

Time Is So Strange And Life Is Twice As Strange.

You Have To Know How To Accept Rejection And Reject Acceptance.

Men Throw Huge Shadows On The Lawn, Don't They? Then, All Their Lives, They Try To Run To Fit The Shadows. But The Shadows Are Always Longer.

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.

You Let The Story Cool Off And Then, Instead Of Rewriting It, You Relive It.

You'll Be Found, Your Nickels, Dimes And Indian-heads Fused By Electroplating. Abe Lincolns Melted Into Miss Columbias, Eagles Plucked Raw On The Backs Of Quarters, All Run To Quicksilver In Your Jeans. More! Any Boy Hit By Lightning, Lift His Lid And There On His Eyeball, Pretty As The Lord's Prayer On A Pin, Find The Last Scene The Boy Ever Saw! A Box-brownie Photo, By God, Of That Fire Climbing Down The Sky To Blow You Like A Penny Whistle, Suck Your Soul Back Up Along The Bright Stair!

Teachers Are To Inspire; Librarians Are To Fulfill.

There's A Lot Of Crap Out There. Most Of The Science Fiction Films Alone Are Abominations, You Know. They're Mindless. So You Can't Learn From Those Kinds Of Films.

If You Hide Your Ignorance, No One Will Hit You And You'll Never Learn.

When You Go Home Tonight, Make A List Of The People Who Are Impediments, Who Don't Believe In You, And Call Them Up And Tell Them, 'get The Hell Out Of My Life.' You Don't Need Them. Writing Is Tough Enough Without Having People Around You Who Contribute To A Writer's Insecurity.

That's Life For You," Said Macdunn. "someone Always Waiting For Someone Who Never Comes Home. Always Someone Loving Some Thing More Than That Thing Loves Them. And After A While You Want To Destroy Whatever That Thing Is, So It Can't Hurt You No More.

We Must All Be Alike. Not Everyone Born Free And Equal, As The Constitution Says, But Everyone Made Equal. Each Man The Image Of Every Other; Then All Are Happy, For There Are No Mountains To Make Them Cower, To Judge Themselves Against.

Science Is No More Than An Investigation Of A Miracle We Can Never Explain, And Art Is An Interpretation Of That Miracle.

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

Sandwich Outdoors Isn’t A Sandwich Anymore. Tastes Different Than Indoors, Notice? Got More Spice. Tastes Like Mint And Pinesap. Does Wonders For The Appetite.

But We Do Need A Breather. We Do Need Knowledge. And Perhaps In A Thousand Years We Might Pick Smaller Cliffs To Jump Off. The Books Are To Remind Us What Asses And Fools We Are. They’re Caesar’s Praetorian Guard, Whispering As The Parade Roars Down The Avenue, ‘remember, Caesar, Thou Art Mortal.’ Most Of Us Can’t Rush Around, Talk To Everyone, Know All The Cities Of The World, We Haven’t Time, Money Or That Many Friends. The Things You’re Looking For, Montag, Are In The World, But The Only Way The Average Chap Will Ever See Ninety-nine Per Cent Of Them Is In A Book.

There Is More Than One Way To Burn A Book.

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.

I Don't Believe In Colleges And Universities.

It Is A Lie To Write In Such Way As To Be Rewarded By Fame Offered You By Some Snobbish Quasi-literary Groups In The Intellectual Gazettes.

I Wonder How Many Men, Hiding Their Youngness, Rise As I Do, Saturday Mornings, Filled With The Hope That Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam And Daffy Duck Will Be There Waiting As Our One True Always And Forever Salvation?

Ideas And Philosophies Change Just As Machines Do. Religions Changed Because Of The Birth Control Pill. Politics Changes Because Of The Hydrogen Bomb. All Because Of Science Fictional Inventions.

Old Men Only Lie In Wait For People To Ask Them To Talk. Then They Rattle On Like A Rusty Elevator Wheezing Up A Shaft.

I've Never Been In Charge Of My Stories, They've Always Been In Charge Of Me. As Each New One Has Called To Me, Ordering Me To Give It Voice And Form And Life, I've Followed The Advice I've Shared With Other Writers Over The Years: Jump Off The Cliff And Build Your Wings On The Way Down.

There Is No Future For E-books, Because They Are Not Books. E-books Smell Like Burned Fuel.

Work. Don't Think. Relax.

We Cannot Tell The Precise Moment When Friendship Is Formed. As In Filling A Vessel Drop By Drop, There Is At Last A Drop Which Makes It Run Over; So In A Series Of Kindnesses There Is At Last One Which Makes The Heart Run Over.

But Souls Can't Be Sold. They Can Only Be Lost And Never Found Again.

This Is The Result Of Six Billion Years Of Evolution. Tonight, We Have Given The Lie To Gravity.we Have Reached For The Stars.

I Was Only Kicking Down The Christmas Tree To Get The Star On Top.

I Do A First Draft As Passionately And As Quickly As I Can. I Believe A Story Is Valid Only When It's Immediate And Passionate, When It Dances Out Of Your Subconscious. If You Interfere In Any Way, You Destroy It.

We Do Need Knowledge. And Perhaps In A Thousand Years We Might Pick Smaller Cliffs To Jump Off. The Books Are To Remind Us What Asses And Fools We Are.

I Spent Three Days A Week For 10 Years Educating Myself In The Public Library, And It's Better Than College.

...trees To Cool The Towns In The Boiling Summer, Trees To Hold Back The Winter Winds. There Were So Many Things A Tree Could Do: Add Color, Provide Shade, Drop Fruit, Or Become A Children's Playground, A Whole Sky Universe To Climb And Hang From; An Architecture Of Food And Pleasure, That Was A Tree. But Most Of All The Trees Would Distill An Icy Air For The Lungs, And A Gentle Rustling For The Ear When You Lay Nights In Your Snowy Bed And Were Gentled To Sleep By The Sound.

Remember: Plot Is No More Than Footprints Left In The Snow After Your Characters Have Run By On Their Way To Incredible Destinations. Plot Is Observed After The Fact Rather Than Before. It Cannot Precede Action. It Is The Chart That Remains When An Action Is Through. That Is All Plot Ever Should Be. It Is Human Desire Let Run, Running, And Reaching A Goal. It Cannot Be Mechanical. It Can Only Be Dynamic.

The Purpose Of Fiction Is Not To Nail You To The Ground As Facts Do, But To Take You To The Edge Of The Cliff And Kick You Off So You Build Your Wings On The Way Down.

I Would Not See Our Candle Blown Out In The Wind. It Is A Small Thing, This Dear Gift Of Life Handed Us Mysteriously Out Of Immensity. I Would Not Have That Gift Expire... If I Seem To Be Beating A Dead Horse Again And Again, I Must Protest: No! I Am Beating, Again And Again, Living Man To Keep Him Awake And Move His Limbs And Jump His Mind... What's The Use Of Looking At Mars Through A Telescope, Sitting On Panels, Writing Books, If It Isn't To Guarantee, Not Just The Survival Of Mankind, But Mankind Surviving Forever!

I Have Two Rules In Life - To Hell With It, Whatever It Is, And Get Your Work Done.

In Sum, Do Not Insult Me With The Beheadings, Finger Choppings Or The Lung-deflations You Plan For My Works. I Need My Head To Shake Or Nod, My Hand To Wave Or Make Into A Fist, My Lungs To Shout Or Whisper With. I Will Not Go Gently Onto A Shelf, Degutted, To Become A Non-book. All You Umpires, Back To The Bleachers. Referees, Hit The Showers. It's My Game. I Pitch, I Hit, I Catch. I Run The Bases. At Sunset I've Won Or Lost. At Sunrise, I'm Out Again, Giving It The Old Try. And No One Can Help Me. Not Even You.

Stuff Your Eyes With Wonder.

Digression Is The Soul Of Wit. Take The Philosophic Asides Away From Dante, Milton Or Hamlet's Father's Ghost And What Stays Is Dry Bones.

That's The Great Secret Of Creativity. You Treat Ideas Like Cats: You Make Them Follow You.

Most Of My Stories Are Ideas In Action. In Other Words, I Get A Concept, And I Let It Run Away. I Find A Character To Act Out The Idea. And Then The Story Takes Care Of Itself.

What Can We Writers Learn From Lizards, Lift From Birds? In Quickness Is Truth. The Faster You Blurt, The More Swiftly You Write, The More Honest You Are. In Hesitation Is Thought. In Delay Comes The Effort For A Style, Instead Of Leaping Upon Truth Which Is The Only Style Worth Deadfalling Or Tiger-trapping.

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.

Please, Please, Help Me Grow To Be Like Them, The Ones'll Soon Be Here, Who Never Grow Old, Can't Die, That's What They Say, Can't Die, No Matter What, Or Maybe They Died A Long Time Ago But Cecy Calls, And Mother And Father Call, And Grandmere Who Only Whispers, And Now They're Coming And I'm Nothing, Not Like Them Who Pass Through Walls And Live In Trees Or Live Underneath Until Seventeen-year Rains Flood Them Up And Out, And The Ones Who Run In Packs, Let Me Be The One! If They Live Forever, Why Not Me?

God, How We Get Our Fingers In Each Other's Clay. That's Friendship, Each Playing The Potter To See What Shapes We Can Make Of Each Other.

Most Of Us Can't Rush Around, Talk To Everyone, Know All The Cities Of The World, We Haven't Time, Money Or That Many Friends. The Things You're Looking For... Are In The World, But The Only Way The Average Chap Will Ever See Ninety-nine Per Cent Of Them Is In A Book.

We Are Living In A Time When Flowers Are Trying To Live On Flowers, Instead Of On Good Rain And Black Loam.

Don't Write For Money. Write Because You Love To Do Something. If You Write For Money, You Won't Write Anything Worth Reading.

For It Is A Mad World And It Will Get Madder If We Allow The Minorities, Be They Dwarf Or Giant, Orangutan Or Dolphin, Nuclear-head Or Water-conversationalist, Pro-computerologist Or Neo-luddite, Simpleton Or Sage, To Interfere With Aesthetics. The Real World Is The Playing Ground For Each And Every Group, To Make Or Unmake Laws. But The Tip Of The Nose Of My Book Or Stories Or Poems Is Where Their Rights End And My Territorial Imperatives Begin, Run And Rule.

One Year Halloween Came On October 24, Three Hours After Midnight. At That Time, James Nightshade Of 97 Oak Street Was Thirteen Years, Eleven Months, Twenty-three Days Old. Next Door, William Halloway Was Thirteen Years, Eleven Months, And Twenty-four Days Old. Both Touched Toward Fourteen; It Almost Trembled In Their Hands. And That Was The October Week When They Grew Up Overnight, And Were Never So Young Any More.

Zest. Gusto. How Rarely One Hears These Words Used. How Rarely Do We See People Living, Or For That Matter, Creating, By Them. Yet If I Were Asked To Name The Most Important Items In A Writer's Make-up, The Things That Shape His Material And Rush Him Along The Road He Wants To Go. I Would Only Warn Him To Look To His Zest, See To His Gusto.

My Job Is To Help You Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

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.

A Day Without Writing Was A Little Death.

It's Poor Judgment', Said Grandpa 'to Call Anything By A Name. We Don't Know What A Hobgoblin Or A Vampire Or A Troll Is. Could Be Lots Of Things. You Can't Heave Them Into Categories With Labels And Say They'll Act One Way Or Another. That'd Be Silly. They're People. People Who Do Things. Yes, That's The Way To Put It. People Who *do* Things.

His Flesh Took Paleness From His Bones.

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

The Magic Is Only In What Books Say, How They Stitched The Patches Of The Universe Together Into One Garment For Us.

I Don't Tell Anyone How To Write And No One Tells Me.

Anything You Dream Is Fiction, And Anything You Accomplish Is Science, The Whole History Of Mankind Is Nothing But Science Fiction.

Everything Is Generated Through Your Own Will Power. You Don't Have To Do Anything You Don't Want To Do. This Is A Democracy. You Go Where You Want To Go And Do What You Want To Do.

I'm Numb And I'm Tired. Too Much Has Happened Today. I Feel As If I'd Been Out In A Pounding Rain For Forty-eight Hours Without An Umbrella Or A Coat. I'm Soaked To The Skin With Emotion.

I Believe In Darwin And God Together.

Last Night I Thought About All The Kerosene I've Used In The Past Ten Years. And I Thought About Books. And For The First Time I Realized That A Man Was Behind Each One Of The Books. A Man Had To Think Them Up. A Man Had To Take A Long Time To Put Them Down On Paper. And I'd Never Even Thought That Thought Before...it Took Some Man A Lifetime Maybe To Put Some Of His Thoughts Down, Looking Around At The World And Life, And Then I Come Along In Two Minutes And Boom! It's All Over.

I Prefer To See Myself As The Janus, The Two-faced God Who Is Half Pollyanna And Half Cassandra, Warning Of The Future And Perhaps Living Too Much In The Past - A Combination Of Both.

And Some Day Well Remember So Much That Well Build The Biggest Goddam Steamshovel In History And Dig The Biggest Grave Of All Time And Shove War In And Cover It Up.

How Working For The Wrong Motives Poisons Our Creativity And Warps Our Ideas Of Success And Failure.

And What, You Ask, Does Writing Teach Us? First And Foremost, It Reminds Us That We Are Alive And That It Is Gift And A Privilege, Not A Right. We Must Earn Life Once It Has Been Awarded Us. Life Asks For Rewards Back Because It Has Favored Us With Animation. So While Our Art Cannot, As We Wish It Could, Save Us From Wars, Privation, Envy, Greed, Old Age, Or Death, It Can Revitalize Us Amidst It All.

I Shall Remain On Mars And Read A Book.

I'll Be Damned If Death Wears My Sadness For Glad Rags.

Shut The Door, They're Coming Through The Window, Shut The Window, They're Coming Through The Door," Are The Words To An Old Song. They Fit My Lifestyle With Newly Arriving Butcher/censors Every Month. Only Six Weeks Ago, I Discovered That, Over The Years, Some Cubby-hole Editors At Ballantine Books, Fearful Of Contaminating The Young, Had, Bit By Bit, Censored Some 75 Separate Sections From The Novel. Students, Reading The Novel Which, After All, Deals With Censorship And Book-burning In The Future, Write To Tell Me Of This Exquisite Irony.

What Do You Do, Go Around Trying Everything Once?' He Asked. 'sometimes Twice.

Trying Everything

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

I Don't Like The Kind Of Writer Who's Out To Change The World And Beat Up On People For Their Own Good. Stalin Did That And Hitler Did That, And To Hell With Them.

We Are The Miracle Of Force And Matter Making Itself Over Into Imagination And Will.

You Don't Read In Your Own Field. You Read In That Field When You're Young, So That You Can Learn.

I Often Wonder If God Recognizes His Own Son The Way We've Dressed Him Up, Or Is It Dressed Him Down?

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!'

The Trouble With Jim Was He Looked At The World And Could Not Look Away. And When You Never Look Away All Your Life, By The Time You Are Thirteen You Have Done Twenty Years Taking In The Laundry Of The World.

The Gift Of Life Is So Precious That We Should Feel An Obligation To Pay Back The Universe For The Gift Of Being Alive.

How Talented Was Death. How Many Expressions And Manipulations Of Hand, Face, Body, No Two Alike.

A Stranger Is Shot In The Street, You Hardly Move To Help. But If, Half An Hour Before, You Spent Just Ten Minutes With The Fellow And Knew A Little About Him And His Family, You Might Just Jump In Front Of His Killer And Try To Stop It. Really Knowing Is Good. Not Knowing, Or Refusing To Know Is Bad, Or Amoral, At Least. You Can’t Act If You Don’t Know.

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.

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

I’m Alive. Thinking About It, Noticing It, Is New. You Do Things And Don’t Watch. Then All Of A Sudden You Look And See What You’re Doing And It’s The First Time, Really.

There Are Too Many Of Us, He Thought. There Are Billions Of Us And That's Too Many. Nobody Knows Anyone. Strangers Come And Violate You. Strangers Come And Cut Your Heart Out. Strangers Come And Take Your Blood. Good God, Who Were Those Men? I Never Saw Them Before In My Life!

Most Members Of Congress Are Politicians. They're Bores. They're Damn Boring. They Have No Imagination, And They Don't Know How To Imagine The Future.

It Doesn't Matter What You Do...so Long As You Change Something From The Way It Was Before You Touched It Into Something That's Like You After You Take Your Hands Away.

I Don't Like Being Up High. It Took Me Three Days To Get To The Top Of The Eiffel Tower.

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

I Can Write Faster On A Typewriter Than You Can On A Computer. I Do 120 Words A Minute, And You Can't Do That On A Computer.

Creativity Is A Continual Surprise.

Everyone Has A Telephone. Whether They Can Afford It Or Not. It's One Of Those Things That People Have, Regardless Of Their Income.

I’ve Often Been Accused Of Being Too Emotional And Sentimental, But I Believe In Honest Sentiment, And The Need To Purge Ourselves At Certain Times, Which Is Ancient. Men Would Live At Least Five Or Six More Years And Not Have Ulcers If They Could Cry Better.

What Are You Up To Now?" "i'm Sill Crazy. The Rain Feels Good. I Love To Walk In It.

The Major Networks, The Cable Networks, They're Being Prosecutors. They're Judges And Jurors And Executioners. Well, C'mon, That's Ridiculous. But They're Doing It.

You Grow Ravenous. You Run Fevers. You Know Exhilarations. You Can't Sleep At Night, Because Your Beast-creature Ideas Want Out And Turn You In Your Bed. It Is A Grand Way To Live.

Do What You Love And Love What You Do. Don’t Do Anything For Money. Everything Should Be For Love.

We Are An Impossibility In An Impossible Universe.

When You're Older You Want To Learn From Other People.

If I Was Ever A Rare Fine Summer Person, That's Long Ago. Most Of Us Are Half-and-half. The August Noon In Us Works To Stave Off The November Chills. We Survive By What Little Fourth Of July Wits We've Stashed Away. But There Are Times When We're All Autumn People.

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")

The Greek Philosophies Teach Us That We Are A Combination Of Dark And Light, Good And Evil, And Murderer And Savior, Hmm? And Until We Know This Completely About Ourselves We Cannot Love Well, And We Cannot Forgive Ourselves.

A Book Is A Loaded Gun.

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

And The Lesson Was This; Sit In The Sun, Head Down, Within A Prickly Vine, In A Flickery Light, Or Open Light, And The World Will Come To You. The Sky Will Come In Its Time, Bringing Rain, And The Earth Will Rise Through You, From Beneath, And Make You Rich And Make You Full.

When The Wind Is Right, A Faint Odor Of Kerosene Is Exhaled From Senator Mccarthy.

Remember, Montag, We're The Happiness Boys. We Stand Against The Small Tide Of Those Who Want To Make Everyone Unhappy With Conflicting Theory And Thought.

If You Don't Like What You're Doing, Then Don't Do It.

I Think The Reason My Stories Have Been So Successful Is That I Have A Strong Sense Of Metaphor.

You Must Never Name The Goal. You Must Never Tell Us The Target You're Hitting For. You Must Automatically Go Toward It Without Ever Naming It.

Write A Short Story Every Week. It's Not Possible To Write 52 Bad Short Stories In A Row.

Out Of The Nursery Into The College And Back Into The Nursery; There’s Your Intellectual Pattern For The Past Five Centuries Or More.

Chock Them So ... 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.

I've Grown Up On A Diet Of Metaphors. If Young Writers Would Find Those Writers Who Can Give Them Metaphors By The Bushel And The Peck, Then They'll Become Better Writers - To Learn How To Capsualize Things And Present Them In Metaphorical Form.

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.

Through Lack Of Education, We're Not Teaching Kids To Read And Write. So There Is The Danger That You Raise Up A Generation Of Morons.

All Silence Is. All Emptiness. And Now: The Dawn.

To Everything There Is A Season. Yes. A Time To Break Down, And A Time To Build Up. Yes. A Time To Keep Silence And A Time To Speak. Yes.

You Will Have To Write And Put Away Or Burn A Lot Of Material Before You Are Comfortable In This Medium. You Might As Well Start Now And Get The Work Done. For I Believe That Eventually Quantity Will Make For Quality.

Don't Think. Thinking Is The Enemy Of Creativity. It's Self-conscious, And Anything Self-conscious Is Lousy. You Can't Try To Do Things. You Simply Must Do Things.

Thinking Of You

The Library Is The Biggest Cracker Box Factory In The World. The More You Eat, The More You Want.

We Meet On The Common Ground Of An Uncommon Age And Share Out Our Gifts Of Dark And Light, Good And Bad, Simple Joy And Not So Simple Sorrow.

We're A Free Society; We've Got Television. We Have Radio. We Have Newspapers. We Have The Videocassette, Which Is Coming Into Play. These Are New Freedoms.

People Who Take Books On Sex To Bed Become Frigid. You Get Self-conscious. You Can't Think A Story. You Can't Think, "i Shall Do A Story To Improve Mankind." Well, It's Nonsense. All The Great Stories, All The Really Worthwhile Plays, Are Emotional Experiences. If You Have To Ask Yourself Whether Or Not You Love A Girl Or You Love A Boy, Forget It. You Don't. A Story Is The Same Way. You Either Feel A Story And Need To Write It, Or You Better Not Write It.

I'll Hold On To The World Tight Some Day. I've Got One Finger On It Now; That's A Beginning.

That Country Whose People Are Autumn People, Thinking Only Autumn Thoughts.

I Think The Sun Is A Flower, That Blooms For Just One Hour.

Life Is Like Underwear, Should Be Changed Twice A Day.

Do What You Love, Don't Do Anything Else.

Work Is The Only Answer. I Have Three Rules To Live By. One, Get Your Work Done. If That Doesn't Work, Shut Up And Drink Your Gin. And When All Else Fails, Run Like Hell!

Rules To Live By

Memory Is An Illusion, Nothing More. It Is A Fire That Needs Constant Tending.

The Wind Outside Nested In Each Tree, Prowled The Sidewalks In Invisible Treads Like Unseen Cats. Tom Skelton Shivered. Anyone Could See That The Wind Was A Special Wind This Night, And The Darkness Took On A Special Feel Because It Was All Hallows' Eve. Everything Seemed Cut From Soft Black Velvet Or Gold Or Orange Velvet. Smoke Panted Up Out Of A Thousand Chimneys Like The Plumes Of Funeral Parades. From Kitchen Windows Drifted Two Pumpkin Smells: Gourds Being Cut, Pies Being Baked.

When I Started Writing Seriously, I Made The Major Discovery Of My Life - That I Am Right And Everybody Else Is Wrong If They Disagree With Me. What A Great Thing To Learn: Don't Listen To Anyone Else, And Always Go Your Own Way.

(...) And Metaphors Like Cats Behind Your Smile, Each One Wound Up To Purr, Each One A Pride, Each One A Fine Gold Beast You've Hid Inside (...)

I'm Interested In Having Fun With Ideas, Throwing Them Up In The Air Like Confetti And Then Running Under Them.

It Didn't Come From The Government Down. There Was No Dictum, No Declaration, No Censorship, To Start With, No! Technology, Mass Exploitation, And Minority Pressure Carried The Trick, Thank God.

Ours Is A Culture And A Time Immensely Rich In Trash As It Is In Treasures.

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 Started Writing Every Day. I Never Stopped.

Writing Every Day

But Most Of All, I Like To Watch People. Sometimes I Ride The Subway All Day And Look At Them And Listen To Them. I Just Want To Figure Out Who They Are And What They Want And Where They Are Going. Sometimes I Even Go To Fun Parks And Ride In The Jet Cars When They Race On The Edge Of Town At Midnight And The Police Don't Care As Long As They're Insured. As Long As Everyone Has Ten Thousand Insurance Everyone's Happy. Sometimes I Sneak Around And Listen In Subways. Or I Listen At Soda Fountains, And Do You Know What? People Don't Talk About Anything.

Poetry Expands The Senses And Keeps Them In Prime Condition. It Keeps You Aware Of Your Nose, Your Eye, Your Ear, Your Tongue, Your Hand.

Into The Air, Over The Valleys, Under The Stars, Above A River, A Pond, A Road, Flew Cecy. Invisible As New Spring Winds, Fresh As The Breath Of Clover Rising From Twilight Fields, She Flew.

What's The Point Of Having A Library Full Of Books You've Already Read?

You Can't Learn To Write That Way - By Writing Directly For The Screen. Wait Until You're 30. But In The Meantime Write 200 Short Stories. You've Got To Learn How To Write!

You've Got To Be Able To Look At Your Thoughts On Paper And Discover What A Fool You Were.

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

In Order For A Thing To Be Horrible It Has To Suffer A Change You Can Recognize.

This Afternoon, Burn Down The House. Tomorrow, Pour Critical Water Upon The Simmering Coals. Time Enough To Think And Cut And Rewrite Tomorrow. But Today-explode-f Ly-apart-disint Egrate! The Other Six Or Seven Drafts Are Going To Be Pure Torture. So Why Not Enjoy The First Draft, In The Hope That Your Joy Will Seek And Find Others In The World Who, By Reading Your Story, Will Catch Fire, Too?

I'm Seventeen And I'm Crazy. My Uncle Says The Two Always Go Together. When People Ask Your Age, He Said, Always Say Seventeen And Insane.

If You Love People You Criticize Them, And If You Don't Love Them You Don't Criticize Them, You Let Them Go To Hell, Don't You? To Help Any Kind Of Friendship, Your Marriage, Your Children, You Criticize Because You Love.

A Conglomerate Heap Of Trash, That's What I Am. But It Burns With A High Flame.

Ask No Guarantees, Ask For No Security, There Never Was Such An Animal. And If There Was It Would Be Related To The Great Sloth Which Hangs Upside Down In A Tree All Day Every Day, Sleeping Its Life Away.

I’m The Thing You Most Desire, You Represent The Thing I Least Desire, Death. It’s Just The Opposite Of Love.

You're Either In Love With What You Do, Or You're Not In Love.

When I Was A Young Man, I Didn't Think About Having A Family. My Wife And I Were Too Poor To Have Babies. Then All Of A Sudden, One Came Along And Scared The Hell Out Of Us Because We Had No Money. Once The Baby Arrives, You Make Do Somehow. You Fall In Love With The Baby And Life Adjusts Itself. You Find You Don't Need As Much Money As You Thought. When That Happens, You Can Ask The Questions That Should Have Come Before The Baby.

Falling In Love

We Travel For Romance, We Travel For Architecture, And We Travel To Be Lost.

I Am A Librarian. I Discovered Me In The Library. I Went To Find Me In The Library. Before I Fell In Love With Libraries, I Was Just A Six-year-old Boy. The Library Fueled All Of My Curiosities, From Dinosaurs To Ancient Egypt. When I Graduated From High School In 1938, I Began Going To The Library Three Nights A Week. I Did This Every Week For Almost Ten Years And Finally, In 1947, Around The Time I Got Married, I Figured I Was Done. So I Graduated From The Library When I Was Twenty-seven. I Discovered That The Library Is The Real School.

I Was One Of Them: The Strange Ones. The Funny People. The Odd Tribes Of Autograph Collectors And Photographers. The Ones Who Waited Through Long Days And Nights, Who Used Other People's Dreams For Their Lives.

I've Been Writing Every Day Of My Life For 65 Years.

Writing Every Day

... Bums On The Outside, Libraries Inside.

I Ate Them Like Salad, Books Were My Sandwich For Lunch, My Tiffin And Dinner And Midnight Munch. I Tore Out The Pages, Ate Them With Salt, Doused Them With Relish, Gnawed On The Bindings, Turned The Chapters With My Tongue! Books By The Dozen, The Score And The Billion. I Carried So Many Home I Was Hunchbacked For Years. Philosophy, Art History, Politics, Social Science, The Poem, The Essay, The Grandiose Play, You Name 'em, I Ate 'em.

The Only Science Fiction I Have Written Is Fahrenheit 451. It's The Art Of The Possible. Science Fiction Is The Art Of The Possible. It Could Happen. It Has Happened.

I Don’t Write Things To Benefit The World. If It Happens That They Do, Swell. I Didn’t Set Out To Do That. I Set Out To Have A Hell Of A Lot Of Fun.

Not To Write, For Many Of Us, Is To Die.

The World, Like A Great Iris Of An Even More Gigantic Eye, Which Has Also Just Opened And Stretched Out To Encompass Everything, Stared Back At Him.

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

If You Have Moved Over Vast Territories And Dared To Love Silly Things, You Will Have Learned Even From The Most Primitive Items Collected And Put Aside In Your Life.

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.

My Parents Read The Comics To Me, And I Fell In Love With Comic Strips. I've Collected Them All Of My Life. I Have A Complete Collection Of All The "buck Rogers" Sunday Funnies And Daily Paper Strips, I Have All Of "prince Valiant" Put Away, All Of "tarzan," Which Appeared In The Sunday Funnies In 1932 Right On Up Through High School. So I've Learned A Lot From Reading Comics As A Child.

Self-consciousness Is The Enemy Of All Art, Be It Acting, Writing, Painting, Or Living Itself, Which Is The Greatest Art Of All.

Oh, What Strange Wonderful Clocks Women Are. They Nest In Time. They Make The Flesh That Holds Fast And Binds Eternity. They Live Inside The Gift, Know Power, Accept, And Need Not Mention It. Why Speak Of Time When You Are Time, And Shape The Universal Moments, As They Pass, Into Warmth And Action?

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