Ray Bradbury

"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."

"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."

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

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

"We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."

"From now on I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But lacking this, in Future I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out.We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out."

"Surprise is where creativity comes in."

"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."

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

"Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled. You’ve got to relax, let it happen at times, and at others move forward with it."

"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."

"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."

"Libraries raised me."

"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."

"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."

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

"It takes writing a billion bad words before you get to the good ones."

"Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way."

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