Ray Bradbury Quotes on Technology, Life and the Future

Ray Bradbury quotes on Everyday Power!

Ray Bradbury was born Ray Douglas Bradbury to Leonard Spaulding Bradbury and Ester Moberg Bradbury in Waukegan, Illinois on August 22, 1920.

He had a relatively idyllic childhood, and loved reading adventure and fantasy stories.

At around age 12 or 13, he made the decision to become a writer because he wanted to “live forever” through his novels.

The first time he was paid for a piece of writing happened when he contributed a joke to George Burns’s Burns & Allen Show.

He graduated from high school in 1938, but as he could not afford to go to college due to the fact that this was during the Depression, he decided to self-teach himself everything at the library by going three days a week for ten years.

While working on his writing career, he supported himself by selling newspapers.

His first short story publication came in a fan magazine in 1938.

In 1939, he started his own magazine made up almost completely of his own writing, which he called Futuria Fantasia.

He sold his first professional piece, a story called “Pendulum,” in 1941, and he became a full-time writer in 1943.

Dark Carnival, his first collection of short stories, was published in 1947.

He published his first major work, The Martian Chronicles, in 1950.

His most popular piece of work, Fahrenheit 451, was published only three short years later, in 1953, and became an instant classic.
He continued to write well into his 80s, and even continued after he could no longer write himself by telling one of his daughters to transcribe his words for him.

His life-long career in writing and brilliant storytelling came to an end when he died at the age of 91, on June 5, 2012, in Los Angeles, California.

Ray Bradbury is an inspiration to everyone, but especially aspiring writers and scholars, because he never let lack of money, formal college education, or the state of his life stop him from pursuing his dreams and becoming the writer he wanted to become.

Don’t forget to also read these Fahrenheit 451 quotes from one of Ray Bradbury’s greatest works.

If you like this article, we suggest you explore our most popular quotes article, a list of short inspirational quotes for daily encouragement. 

Look through our complete collection of inspirational quotes here.

Inspirational Ray Bradbury quotes about life

1. “You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” – Ray Bradbury

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2. “We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.” – Ray Bradbury

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3. “Because I like you, she said, and I don’t want anything from you.” – Ray Bradbury

4. “Why is it, he said, one time, at the subway entrance, I feel I’ve known you so many years?” – Ray Bradbury

You will also enjoy our article on quotes about reading.

5. “If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.” – Ray Bradbury

6. “Everything that happens before Death is what counts.” – Ray Bradbury

7. “First you jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.” – Ray Bradbury

8. “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” – Ray Bradbury

If you’re enjoying these quotes, make sure to read our collection of writing quotes that will inspire you to begin your own writing journey.

9. “I don’t talk things, sir. I talk the meaning of things.” – Ray Bradbury

10. “I have two rules in life – to hell with it, whatever it is, and get your work done.” – Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury quotes on education

11. “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.” – Ray Bradbury

12. “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.” – Ray Bradbury

13. “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.” – Ray Bradbury

14. “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.” – Ray Bradbury

15. “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.” – Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury quotes on writing

16. “The good writers touch life often. The mediocre ones run a quick hand over her. The bad ones rape her and leave her for the flies.” – Ray Bradbury

17. “The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.” – Ray Bradbury

18. “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.” – Ray Bradbury

19. “There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.” – Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury quotes on life

20. “We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.” – Ray Bradbury

21. “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?” – Ray Bradbury

22. “A book is a loaded gun in the house next door…Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?” – Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury quotes on life

23. “A good night sleep, or a ten minute bawl, or a pint of chocolate ice cream, or all three together, is good medicine.” – Ray Bradbury

24. “Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction.” – Ray Bradbury

25. “Bees do have a smell, you know, and if they don’t they should, for their feet are dusted with spices from a million flowers.” – Ray Bradbury

Which Ray Bradbury quotes are your favorite?

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