They Walked Still Farther And The Girl Said, "is It True That Long Ago Firemen Put Fires Out Instead Of Going To Start Them?" No. Houses Have Always Been Fireproof, Take My Word For It." Strange. I Heard Once That A Long Time Ago Houses Used To Burn By Accident And They Needed Firemen To Stop The Flames.

-Ray Bradbury

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They Walked Still Farther

Ray Bradbury

Topic

Girl

Fire

Flames

More From Ray Bradbury

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.

Fighting

Order

Color

We Are The Witnesses To The Miracle. We Are Put Here By Creation, By God....we're Here To Be The Audience To The Magnificent. It Is Our Job To Celebrate.

Spiritual

Jobs

Godly

I Love The Musical Form Of Books. It's A Different Way Of Doing Things, It's Very Beautiful. You're Able To Sing Things Instead Of Saying Them. So What The Heck - Why Not Do Them?

Beautiful

Book

Musical

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

Long

Wish

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

Mistake

Book

Insane

You Can Write A Short Story In Two Hours. Two Hours A Day, You Have A Novel In A Year

Writing

Years

Two

Just Write Every Day Of Your Life. Read Intensely. Then See What Happens. Most Of My Friends Who Are Put On That Diet Have Very Pleasant Careers.

Writing

Careers

Inspire

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.

Girl

Sex

Book

Here At This Far Lost End Of The Continent, Where The Trail Wagons Had Stopped And The People With Them.

Venice

People

Wagons

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.

Real

School

Boys

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.

Life

Years

Doe

When A Man Talks From His Heart, In His Moment Of Truth, He Speaks Poetry.

Heart

Men

Speak

They Are So Confident That They Will Run On Forever. But They Won't Run On. They Don't Know That This Is All One Huge Big Blazing Meteor That Makes A Pretty Fire In Space, But That Some Day It'll Have To Hit.

Running

Space

Fire

May You Be In Love Every Day For The Next 20,000 Days. And Out Of That Love, Remake A World.

Love

Romantic

World

Oh God, The Terrible Tyranny Of The Majority. We All Have Our Harps To Play. And It's Up To You To Know With Which Ear You'll Listen.

Play

Tyranny Of The Majority

Up To You

The Ability To Fantasize Is The Ability To Survive, And The Ability To Fantasize Is The Ability To Grow

Ability

Grows

You Ask Why To A Lot Of Things And You Wind Up Very Unhappy Indeed, If You Keep At It. The Poor Girl's Better Off Dead

Girl

Wind

Better Off Dead

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

Home

School

Trying

And I Saw Then And There You Take A Man Half-bad And A Women Half-bad And Put Their Two Good Halves Together And You Got One Human All Good To Share Between.

Men

Two

Together

Hello!" He Said Hello And Then Said, "what Are You Up To Now?" "i'm Still Crazy. The Rain Feels Good. I Love To Walk In It. "i Don't Think I'd Like That," He Said. "you Might If You Tried." "i Never Have." She Licked Her Lips. "rain Even Tastes Good." "what Do You Do, Go Around Trying Everything Once?" He Asked. "sometimes Twice.

Crazy

Rain

Thinking

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

Worry

Way

Reputation

Life Should Be Touched, Not Strangled.

Life

Letting Go

Should

Somewhere In Him, A Shadow Turned Mournfully Over. You Had To Run With A Night Like This So The Sadness Could Not Hurt

Running

Hurt

Sadness

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

Crazy

Rain

Feel Good

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.

Wife

Forgiving

Peculiar

Time Is So Strange And Life Is Twice As Strange. You Must Promise Me Not To Live To Be Too Old, William. It If Is At All Convenient, Die Before You're Fifty. It My Take A Bit Of Doing. But I Advise This Is Simply Because There Is No Telling When Another Helen Loomis Might Be Born. It Would Be Dreadful, Wouldn't It, If You Lived On To Be Very Very Old And Some Afternoon In 1999 Walked Down Main Street And Saw Me Standing There, Aged Twenty-one, And The Whole Thing Out Of Balance Again?

Promise

Balance

Twenties

Without The Library, You Have No Civilization.

Civilization

Library

The Stars Are Yours, If You Have The Head, The Hands, And The Heart For Them.

Stars

Heart

Hands

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.

Writing

Effort

Bird

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

Life Is Like

Underwear

Should

The Jungle Looked Back At Them With A Vastness, A Breathing Moss-and-leaf Silence, With A Billion Diamond And Emerald Insect Eyes.

Eye

Breathing

Silence

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...

Running

Spring

Autumn

The Internet Is A Big Distraction. It's Distracting, It's Meaningless; It's Not Real. It's In The Air Somewhere.

Real

Air

Internet

Writing Is Like Sex. You Have To Save Your Love For The Love Object. If You Go Around Spouting About Your Idea, There'll Be No "charge" Left. You Can't Father Children That Way.

Sex

Children

Father

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

Inspirational

Learning

Jumping

Are You Happy?" She [clarisse] Said. "am I What?" He [montag] Cried. But She Was Gone- Running In The Moonlight. Her Front Door Shut Gently.

Running

Doors

Gone

Do You Ever Wonder If--well, If There Are People Living On The Third Planet?' 'the Third Planet Is Incapable Of Supporting Life,' Stated The Husband Patiently. 'our Scientists Have Said There's Far Too Much Oxygen In Their Atmosphere.

Husband

Oxygen

People

Miraculously, Smoke Curled Out Of His Own Mouth, His Nose, His Ears, His Eyes, As If His Soul Had Been Extinguished Within His Lungs At The Very Moment The Sweet Pumpkin Gave Up Its Incensed Ghost.

Sweet

Eye

Soul

Stuff Your Eyes With Wonder, 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.

Inspirational

Life

Dream

In That Film Love Story, There's A Line, "love Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry." That's The Dumbest Thing I Ever Heard. Love Means Saying You're Sorry Every Day For Some Little Thing Or Other.

Love

Sorry

Mean

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

School

Library

Use

First, Find Out What Your Hero Wants, Then Just Follow Him.

Hero

Writing

Want

Where Would You Like To Go, What Would You Really Like To Do With Your Life? See Istanbul, Port Said, Nairobi, Budapest. Write A Book. Smoke Too Many Cigarettes. Fall Off A Cliff But Get Caught In A Tree Halfway Down. Get Shot At A Few Times In A Dark Alley On A Morrocan Midnight. Love A Beautiful Woman.

Beautiful

Book

Fall

Books Are Flesh-and-blood Ideas And Cry Out, Silently, When Put To The Torch.

Book

Blood

Ideas

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.

Men

Judging

Mountain

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.

People

World

Kind

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

Sadness

Rags

Glad

When I Graduated From High School, It Was During The Depression And We Had No Money.

School

High School

Self Education

What Is It About Fire That's So Lovely? No Matter What Age We Are, What Draws Us To It?...the Thing Man Wanted To Invent, But Never Did...if You Let It Go On, It'd Burn Our Lifetimes Out. What Is Fire? It Is A Mystery. Scientists Give Us Gobbledygook About Friction And Molecules. But They Don't Really Know. Its Real Beauty Is That It Destroys Responsibility And Consequences.

Real

Responsibility

Men

Thinking Little At All About Nothing In Particular.

Thinking

Littles

Particular

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.

Reading

Writing

School

"that's Sad," Said Montag, Quietly, "because All We Put Into It Is Hunting And Finding And Killing. What A Shame If That's All It Can Ever Know."

Hunting

Shame

Killing

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.

Technology

Government

Thank God

Dandelion Wine. The Words Were Summer On The Tongue. The Wine Was Summer Caught And Stoppered...sealed Away For Opening On A January Day With Snow Falling Fast And The Sun Unseen For Weeks.

Summer

Fall

Wine

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

Fire

Forget

Clean

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

Girl

Boys

Forget

Any Man Who Can Take A Tv Wall Apart And Put It Back Together Again, And Most Men Can Nowadays, Is Happier Than Any Man Who Tries To Slide-rule, Measure, And Equate The Universe, Which Just Won't Be Measured Or Equated Without Making Man Feel Bestial And Lonely.

Lonely

Wall

Men

There Is More Than One Way To Burn A Book. And The World Is Full Of People Running About With Lit Matches. Every Minority, Be It Baptist/unitarian, Irish/italian/octogenarian/zen Buddhist, Zionist/seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/republican, Mattachine/foursquaregospel Feels It Has The Will, The Right, The Duty To Douse The Kerosene, Light The Fuse. Every Dimwit Editor Who Sees Himself As The Source Of All Dreary Blanc-mange Plain Porridge Unleavened Literature, Licks His Guillotine And Eyes The Neck Of Any Author Who Dares To Speak Above A Whisper Or Write Above A Nursery Rhyme.

Running

Buddhist

Book

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.

Education

Book

College

Do You Understand Now Why Books Are Hated And Feared? Because They Reveal The Pores On The Face Of Life. The Comfortable People Want Only The Faces Of The Full Moon, Wax, Faces Without Pores, Hairless, Expressionless.

Book

Moon

People

Remember, The Firemen Are Rarely Necessary. The Public Itself Stopped Reading Of Its Own Accord.

Reading

Remember

Fireman

A Good Night Sleep, Or A Ten Minute Bawl, Or A Pint Of Chocolate Ice Cream, Or All Three Together, Is Good Medicine.

Good Night

Sleep

Chocolate Ice Cream

I Have Something To Fight For And Live For; That Makes Me A Better Killer. I've Got What Amounts To A Religion Now. It's Learning How To Breathe All Over Again. And How To Lie In The Sun Getting A Tan, Letting The Sun Work Into You. And How To Hear Music And How To Read A Book. What Does Your Civilization Offer?

Lying

Book

Fighting

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.

Letting Go

Running

Writing

These Are All Novels, All About People That Never Existed, The People That Read Them It Makes Them Unhappy With Their Own Lives. Makes Them Want To Live In Other Ways They Can Never Really Be.

People

Unhappy

Want

Programs Like 'jeopardy' And 'who Wants To Be A Millionaire' Are Ridiculous. They're The Stupidest Shows In History. They're Making Us Dumber. They Don't Give Us Information, They Give Us Facts, Factoids. You Don't Learn Who Napoleon Was And How He Was Motivated. You Learn What Year He Was Born, And When He Died. That's Useless.

Years

Giving

Useless

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.

Children

Winter

Islands

The Minute You Get A Religion You Stop Thinking. Believe In One Thing Too Much And You Have No Room For New Ideas.

Believe

Thinking

Ideas

Thus Through Half-belief, We Are Often Doomed To Repeat That Very Past We Should Have Learned From.

Past

Should Have

Half

He Stood Breathing, And The More He Breathed The Land In, The More He Was Filled Up With All The Details Of The Land. He Was Not Empty. There Was More Than Enough Here To Fill Him. There Would Always Be More Than Enough.

Nature

Adventure

Filled Up

Touch A Scientist And You Touch A Child.

Children

Science

Disrespectful

The Sun Burnt Every Day. It Burnt Time.

Sun

Fireman

Fahrenheit 451 Book

I Just Want Someone To Hear What I Have To Say. And Maybe If I Talk Long Enough, It’ll Make Sense.

Long

Want

Enough

The Great Fun In My Life Has Been Getting Up Every Morning And Rushing To The Typewriter Because Some New Idea Has Hit Me.

Morning

Fun

Typewriters

We Can't Live Alone In Any Society. But The Best Way To Help A Society Or Group, Is To Be The Best Individual In It That We Can Be.

Way

Groups

Helping

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.

Father

Writing

Dry Bones

Kerosene," He Said, Because The Silence Had Lengthened, "is Nothing But Perfume To Me.

Silence

Perfume

Said

So It Was The Hand That Started It All . . . His Hands Had Been Infected, And Soon It Would Be His Arms . . . His Hands Were Ravenous.

Hands

Would Be

Arms

To Solve The Drug Problem, We Have To Start At The Root - First Grade. If A Boy Has All The Toys In His Head That Reading Can Give Him, And You Hook Him Into Science Fiction, Then You've Got The Future Secured.

Reading

Boys

Roots

Christ Is One Of The 'family' Now. I Often Wonder If God Recognizes His Own Son The Way We've Dressed Him Up, Or Is It Dressed Him Down? He's Regular Peppermint Stick Now, All Sugar Crystal And Saccharine - When He Isn't Making Veiled References To Certain Commercial Products That Ever Worshiper Absolutely Needs.

Son

Sugar

Peppermint

Venice Was And Is Full Of Lost Places Where People Put Up For Sale The Last Worn Bits Of Their Souls, Hoping No One Will Buy.

Venice

People

Soul

We've Got To Reinvest In Space Travel. We Should Have Never Left The Moon.

Moon

Should Have

Space

If Teachers And Grammar School Editors Find My Jawbreaker Sentences Shatter Their Mushmilk Teeth, Let Them Eat Stale Cake Dunked In Weak Tea Of Their Own Ungodly Manufacture.

Teacher

School

Editors

The Beginning Of Wisdom, As They Say. When You're Seventeen You Know Everything. When You're Twenty-seven If You Still Know Everything You're Still Seventeen.

Teenager

Twenties

Seven

It's Lack That Gives Us Inspiration. It's Not Fullness.

Inspiration

Giving

Fullness

He Wore His Happiness Like A Mask And The Girl Had Run Off Across The Lawn With The Mask And There Was No Way Of Going To Knock On Her Door And Ask For It Back.

Girl

Running

Doors

I Believe In Libraries Because Most Students Don't Have Any Money.

Believe

Library

Students

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

People

Want

And When He Died, I Suddenly Realized I Wasn't Crying For Him At All, But For The Things He Did. I Cried Because He Would Never Do Them Again.

Cry

Cried

Died

A Computer Does Not Smell ... If A Book Is New, It Smells Great. If A Book Is Old, It Smells Even Better… And It Stays With You Forever. But The Computer Doesn’t Do That For You. I’m Sorry.

Sorry

Book

Smell

I'll Be Darned!" Said Douglas. "i Never Thought Of That. That's Brilliant! It's True. Old People Never Were Children!" "and It's Kind Of Sad," Said Tom, Sitting Still."there's Nothing We Can Do To Help Them.

Children

Sitting Still

People

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

Book

Library

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.

Eye

Hands

Noses

I Take This Continent With Me Into The Grave.

Graves

Continents

Now That I Have You Thoroughly Confused, Let Me Pause To Hear Your Own Dismayed Cry.

Confused

Cry

Let Me

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.

Giving

Young Writers

Metaphor

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.

Beautiful

Book

Writing

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.

Song

Book

Reading

I Don't Like Realism. We Already Know The Real Facts About Li[fe], Most Of The Basic Facts. I'm Not Interested In Repeating What We Already Know. We Know About Sex, About Violence, About Murder, About War. All These Things, By The Time We're 18, We're Up To Here. From There On We Need Interpreters. We Need Poets. We Need Philosophers. We Need Theologians, Who Take The Same Basic Facts And Work With Them And Help Us Make Do With Those Facts. Facts Alone Are Not Enough. It's Interpretation.

Sex

Real

War

My Goal Is To Entertain Myself And Others.

Goal

We Are The Miracle Of Force And Matter Making Itself Over Into Imagination And Will. Incredible. The Life Force Experimenting With Forms. You For One. Me For Another. The Universe Has Shouted Itself Alive. We Are One Of The Shouts.

Life

Philosophy

Imagination

I Have Spent My Life Going From Mania To Mania. Somehow It Has All Paid Off.

Mania

Paid Off

Paid

I Don't Write Science Fiction. I've Only Done One Science Fiction Book And That's Fahrenheit 451, Based On Reality. Science Fiction Is A Depiction Of The Real. Fantasy Is A Depiction Of The Unreal.

Real

Book

Writing

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

Running

Forever

Shadow

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!)

Mean

Math

Men

Friendship Is An Island That You Retreat To And You All Fall On The Floor And Laugh At All The Other Ninnies That Don't Have Enough Brains To Have Your Good Taste.

Fall

Islands

Laughing

Painting Fulfills A Need To Be Non-intellectual. There Are Times When We Have To Get Our Brains Out In Our Fingers.

Intellectual

Brain

Needs

First Of All, It Was October, A Rare Month For Boys.

Halloween

Boys

Months

If You Don't Want A Man Unhappy Politically, Don't Give Him Two Sides To A Question To Worry Him; Give Him One. Better Yet, Give Him None.

Men

Two Sides

Giving

Every Time You Take A Step, Even When You Don't Want To. . . . When It Hurts, When It Means You Rub Chins With Death, Or Even If It Means Dying, That's Good. Anything That Moves Ahead, Wins. No Chess Game Was Ever Won By The Player Who Sat For A Lifetime Thinking Over His Next Move.

Hurt

Moving

Mean

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

Three

Towers

Eiffel Tower

For These Beings, Fall Is Ever The Normal Season, The Only Weather, There Be No Choice Beyond. Where Do They Come From? The Dust. Where Do They Go? The Grave. Does Blood Stir Their Veins? No: The Night Wind. What Ticks In Their Head? The Worm. What Speaks From Their Mouth? The Toad. What Sees From Their Eye? The Snake. What Hears With Their Ear? The Abyss Between The Stars. They Sift The Human Storm For Souls, Eat Flesh Of Reason, Fill Tombs With Sinners. They Frenzy Forth. Such Are The Autumn People.

Stars

Fall

Eye

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

Silence

Dawn

Emptiness

Death Doesn't Exist. It Never Did, It Never Will. But We've Drawn So Many Pictures Of It, So Many Years, Trying To Pin It Down, Comprehend It, We've Got To Thinking Of It As An Entity, Strangely Alive And Greedy. All It Is, However, Is A Stopped Watch, A Loss, An End, A Darkness. Nothing.

Death

Loss

Thinking

Love Is Easy, And I Love Writing.

Writing

Love Is

Secret Love

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.

Machines

Internet

Cellphone

The Best Scientist Is Open To Experience And Begins With Romance - The Idea That Anything Is Possible.

Inspirational

Life

Science

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.

Art

Book

Ninety Nine

I Was Never Young. Whoever I Was Then Is Dead. That's More Of Your Quills. I Don't Want A Hide Full, Thanks. I Have Always Figured That You Die Each Day And And Each Day Is A Is A Box, You See, All Numbered And Neat; But Never Go Back And Lift The Lids, Because You Have Died A Couple Thousand Times In Your Life, And That's A Lot Of Corpses, Each Dead A Different Way, Each With A Worse Expression. Each Of Those Days Is A Different You, Somebody You Don't Know Or Understand Or Want To Understand.

Couple

Expression

Different

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.

Boys

Unhappy

Want

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. Acting Without Knowing Takes You Right Off The Cliff.

Knowing

Acting

Cliffs

I Still Love Books. Nothing A Computer Can Do Can Compare To A Book. You Can't Really Put A Book On The Internet. Three Companies Have Offered To Put Books By Me On The Net, And I Said, 'if You Can Make Something That Has A Nice Jacket, Nice Paper With That Nice Smell, Then We'll Talk.' All The Computer Can Give You Is A Manuscript. People Don't Want To Read Manuscripts. They Want To Read Books. Books Smell Good. They Look Good. You Can Press It To Your Bosom. You Can Carry It In Your Pocket.

Nice

Book

Smell

The Universe Has Shouted Itself Alive. We Are One Of The Shouts.

Miracle

Alive

Martian Chronicles

If Someone Sends You A Love Letter You've Got To Answer Back.

Answers

Letters

Love Letter

If You Had Your Way You’d Pass A Law To Abolish All The Little Jobs, The Little Things. But Then You’d Leave Yourselves Nothing To Do Between The Big Jobs And You’d Have A Devil Of A Time Thinking Up Things To Do So You Wouldn’t Go Crazy. Instead Of That, Why Not Let Nature Show You A Few Things? Cutting Grass And Pulling Weeds Can Be A Way Of Life, Son.

Weed

Jobs

Crazy

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.

Believe

Men

Emotional

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.

Country

Twilight

Rain

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.

Cute

Doe

Different

Mysteries Abound Where Most We Seek For Answers.

Answers

Mystery

I'm Not Anyone, I'm Just Myself; Whatever I Am, I Am Something, And Now I'm Something You Can't Help.

Helping

Martian Chronicles

It Was A Great Place To Write A Novel About Book Burning, In The Library Basement.

Book

Writing

Library

Every Morning I Jump Out Of Bed And Step On A Landmine. The Landmine Is Me. After The Explosion, I Spent The Rest Of The Day Putting The Pieces Together.

Good Morning

Good Day

Reality

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.

People

Want

Wanted

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

Writing

Breathing

Stories

I Have Fun With Ideas; I Play With Them.

Fun

Play

Ideas

Fame And Money Are Gifts Given To Us Only After We Have Gifted The World With Our Best, Our Lonely, Our Individual Truths.

Lonely

World

Fame

In My Later Years I Have Looked In The Mirror Each Day And Found A Happy Person Staring Back. Occasionally I Wonder Why I Can Be So Happy. The Answer Is That Every Day Of My Life I've Worked Only For Myself And For The Joy That Comes From Writing And Creating. The Image In My Mirror Is Not Optimistic, But The Result Of Optimal Behavior.

Writing

Optimistic

Mirrors

Science-fiction Balances You On The Cliff. Fantasy Shoves You Off.

Balance

Fiction

Cliffs

Is It True, The World Works Hard And We Play? Is That Why We're Hated So Much?

Hard Work

Play

World

Acting Without Knowing Takes You Right Off The Cliff.

Knowing

Acting

Cliffs

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.

Art

War

Envy

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.

Giving

Forever

Lazy

The Average Tv Commercial Of Sixty Seconds Has One Hundred And Twenty Half-second Clips In It, Or One-third Of A Second. We Bombard People With Sensation. That Substitutes For Thinking.

Thinking

Average

People

Disbelief Is Catching. It Rubs Off On People.

People

Catching

Disbelief

I Don't Try To Describe The Future. I Try To Prevent It.

Future

Trying

Programming

The Automobile Is The Most Dangerous Weapon In Our Society - Cars Kill More Than Wars Do.

War

Car

Weapons

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

Flower

Rain

Black

He Glanced Back At The Wall. How Like A Mirror, Too, Her Face. Impossible; For How Many People Did You Know Who Reflected Your Own Light To You? People Were More Often--he Searched For A Simile, Found One In His Work--torches, Blazing Away Until They Whiffed Out. How Rarely Did Other People's Faces Take Of You And Throw Back To You Your Own Expression, Your Own Innermost Trembling Thought?

Wall

Mirrors

Light

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

Reading

Writing

Worth Reading

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

Book

Madness

Wit

They Stood There, King Of The Hill, Top Of The Heap, Ruler Of All They Surveyed, Unimpeachable Monarchs And Presidents, Trying To Understand What It Meant To Own A World And How Big A World Really Was.

Leadership

Kings

Trying

It's Not Going To Do Any Good To Land On Mars If We're Stupid.

Stupid

Land

Mars

"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?"

God

Mother

Father

Write What You Love And Love What You Write.

Good Morning

Writing

Doing What You Love

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. They May Like Henry James, But What If You Don’t Want To Write Like Henry James? They May Like John Irving, For Instance, Who’s The Bore Of All Time. A Lot Of The People Whose Work They’ve Taught In The Schools For The Last Thirty Years, I Can’t Understand Why People Read Them And Why They Are Taught.

Teacher

Writing

School

We Are Anthill Men Upon An Anthill World.

Men

World

Since Everything Is But An Apparition, Having Nothing To Do With Good Or Bad, Acceptance Or Rejection, One May Well Burst Out In Laughter. Longchenpa Let's Stuff Our Eyes With Wonder, Let's Live As If We'd Drop Dead In Ten Seconds. Let's See The World. It's More Fantastic Than Any Dream Made Or Paid For In Factories.

Dream

Rest In Peace

Laughter

Why Would You Clone People When You Can Go To Bed With Them And Make A Baby? C'mon, It's Stupid.

Funny

Baby

Stupid

We've Let Too Much Time Go By. We've Been Busy With War Instead Of Being Busy With Peace. And That's What Space Travel Is All About. It's All About Peace And Exploration And Wonder And Beauty.

War

Space

Too Much

Good To Evil Seems Evil

Evil

Seems

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

Writing

Stories

Week

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.

Art

Reading

Commitment

Treasure This Day And Treasure Yourself, Truly, Neither Will Ever Happen Again.

Treasure

Happens

This Day

We're Going To Become The Martians When We Land There. When We Explore And Build Communities, We Become The Martians. That's A Wonderful Destiny For All Of Us.

Destiny

Land

Community

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.

Friendship

Inspiring

Clay

Sometimes You Have Intuitive Insight About How You Think Things Are Going To Be, And You Write That. Other Times You Fantasize Completely, Which Has Nothing To Do With Predicting The Future.

Writing

Thinking

Sometimes

I Hate All Politics. I Don't Like Either Political Party. One Should Not Belong To Them - One Should Be An Individual, Standing In The Middle. Anyone That Belongs To A Party Stops Thinking.

Hate

Party

Thinking

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.

Digging

Vigor

Fever

Dad," Said Will, His Voice Very Faint. "are You A Good Person?" "to You And Your Mother, Yes, I Try. But No Man's A Hero To Himself. I've Lived With Me A Lifetime, Will. I Know Everything Worth Knowing About Myself-" "and, Adding It All Up...?" "the Sum? As They Come And Go, And I Mostly Sit Very Still And Tight, Yes, I'm All Right.

Mother

Dad

Hero

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.

Book

Past

Night

That's The Good Part Of Dying; When You've Nothing To Lose, You Run Any Risk You Want.

Running

Risk

Dying

I Don't Decide. My Secret Self Decides. I Just Go With My Subconscious. If It Wants To Do A Poem, I Do A Poem, And If It Wants To Do A Play, I Do A Play. So I'm Not In Charge, I'm Not In Control.

Self

Play

Secret

The Psychiatrist Wants To Know Why I Go Out And Hike Around In The Forests And Watch The Birds And Collect Butterflies. I'll Show You My Collection Some Day.good.they Want To Know What I Do With My Time. I Tell Them That Sometimes I Just Sit And Think. But I Won't Tell Them What. I've Got Them Running. And Sometimes, I Tell Them, I Like To Put My Head Back, Like This, And Let The Rain Fall In My Mouth. It Tastes Just Like Wine. Have You Ever Tried It?

Running

Rain

Fall

Everything Of Mine Is Permeated With My Love Of Ideas-both Big And Small. It Doesn't Matter What It Is, As Long As It Grabs Me And Holds Me, Facinates Me. And Then I'll Run Out And Something About It... I Write For Fun.

Running

Fun

Writing

I Love Writing, It's The Center Of My Life. If You Don't Love What You Do, You'd Better Find Something Else To Love. Otherwise, You Don't Have A Reason For Living.

Writing

Reason

Ifs

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.

Hurt

Home

Waiting

This Is The Emotional Thing, You See - You Must Galvanize People, So They Want To Be Completely Alive And Live Forever, Or The Next Thing To It. And Out Of That Comes Art, Then, And Survival Through Emotion.

Art

Emotional

People

Night Had Come On Like The Closing Of A Great But Gentle Eye.

Eye

Night

Gentle

I Want To Hold Onto This Funny Thing. God, It's Gotten Big On Me. I Don't Know What It Is. I'm So Damned Unhappy, I'm So Mad, And I Don't Know Why. I Feel Like I'm Putting On Weight. I Feel Fat. I Feel Like I'm Saving A Lot Of Things, And I Don't Know What. I Might Even Start Reading Books.

Book

Reading

Funny Things

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.

Lying

Writing

Intellectual

It Doesn't Matter What You Do, He Said, 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. The Difference Between The Man Who Just Cuts Lawns And A Real Gardener Is In The Touching, He Said. The Lawn-cutter Might Just As Well Not Have Been There At All; The Gardener Will Be There A Lifetime.

Real

Cutting

Men

My Gosh, If You’re Going Away, We Got A Million Things To Talk About! All The Things We Would’ve Talked About Next Month, The Month After! Praying Mantises, Zeppelins, Acrobats, Sword Swallowers!

Going Away

Months

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.

Silly

Names

People

My Tunes And Numbers Are Here. They Have Filled My Years, The Years When I Refused To Die. And In Order To Do That I Wrote, I Wrote, I Wrote, At Noon Or 3:00 A.m. So As Not To Be Dead.

Order

Years

Numbers

Those Who Don't Build Must Burn.

Fahrenheit 451 Book

Delinquents

Suddenly The Day Was Gone, Night Came Out From Under Each Tree And Spread.

Night

Tree

Gone

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

Art

Fiction

Impossible

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.

Years

Twenties

Looks

All Of The Good, Weird Stories I’ve Written Are Based On Things I’ve Dredged Out Of My Subconscious. That’s The Real Stuff. Everything Else Is Fake.

Real

Fake

Stories

Don’t Let People Interfere With You. Boot ’em Out, Turn Off The Phone, Hide Away, Get It Done. If You Carry A Short Story Over To The Next Day You May Overnight Intellectualize Something About It And Try To Make It Too Fancy, Try To Please Someone.

Phones

Next Day

People

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

Writing

Culture

Treasure

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

Twelve

Hours

Shots

Mother: Why, Just Lying There, Jim, You Run So Fast. I Never Saw Anyone Move So Much, Just Sleeping. Promise Me, Jim. Wherever You Go And Come Back, Bring Lots Of Kids. Let Them Run Wild. Let Me Spoil Them, Some Day. Jim: I'm Never Going To Own Anything That Can Hurt Me.

Mother

Running

Hurt

The Autumn Leaves Blew Over The Moonlit Pavement In Such A Way As To Make The Girl Who Was Moving There Seem Fixed To A Sliding Walk, Letting The Motion Of The Wind And The Leaves Carry Her Forward. [...] The Trees Overhead Made A Great Sound Of Letting Down Their Dry Rain.

Girl

Rain

Moving

Love What You Do And Do What You Love.

What You Love

We Are All . . . Children Of This Universe. Not Just Earth, Or Mars, Or This System, But The Whole Grand Fireworks. And If We Are Interested In Mars At All, It Is Only Because We Wonder Over Our Past And Worry Terribly About Our Possible Future.

Children

Past

Worry

And The Odd Think In Dad's Voice Was The Sound Truth Makes Being Said.

Dad

Thinking

Voice

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

Stars

Tree

Kicking

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.

Philosophy

Dark

Light

The Moon Is A Good, Solid Base To Build A Space Travel Organization In The Community.

Moon

Organization

Space

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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