Ray Bradbury

"We are living in a time when flowers are trying to live on flowers, instead of on good rain and black loam."

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

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

"We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing."

"Science fiction is any idea that occurs in the head and doesn't exist yet, but soon will, and will change everything for everybody, and nothing will ever be the same again. As soon as you have an idea that changes some small part of the world you are writing science fiction. It is always the art of the possible, never the impossible."

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

"Self-consciousness is the enemy of all art, be it acting, writing, painting, or living itself, which is the greatest art of all."

"The best scientist is open to experience and begins with romance - the idea that anything is possible."

"You must write every single day of your life... You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads... may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world."

"If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd be cynical: "It's gonna go wrong."Or "She's going to hurt me."Or,"I've had a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore . . ."Well, that's nonsense. You're going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build your wings on the way down."

"Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for."

"Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The key word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for."

"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 writer."[1967 interview]"

"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."

"I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years."

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

"First you jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down."

"Libraries raised me."

"Surprise is where creativity comes in."

"Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down."