June 6, 2012: Ray Bradbury dies at 91.
The great American author (best known for his science-fiction works) of Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Dandelion Wine, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and hundreds of other novels, short stories, plays, passed away today after “a lengthy illness”. The obituary that appeared in The New York Times calls him “the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream”. Following Bradbury’s death, Steven Spielberg said of the author: “In the world of science fiction and fantasy and imagination he is immortal”; President Obama remarked that “his gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world”.
More quotes from Bradbury and from his works:
Books were only one type of receptacle where we started a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical about them at all. The magic is only with what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment.
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. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.
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.
If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.
- Fahrenheit 451
There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves.
- The Martian Chronicles
A good night sleep, or a ten minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.
The first thing you learn in life is you’re a fool. The last thing you learn in life is you’re the same fool.
- Dandelion Wine
Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.
- “The Meadow”
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?