Ray Bradbury Quotes

If I were to say what I really think I would be arrested or shut away in a lunatic asylum. Come on, I am sure that it would be the same for everyone.

Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others. Their fear is only their inability to face what is real, and I can't vent any anger against them; I only feel this appalling sadness. Somewhere in their upbringing, they were shielded against the total facts of our existence.

The truth is not delicate and it does not suffer from denial—the truth only dies when true stories are untold.

I say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard and shows the bare bones beneath.

There is no tyranny so hateful as a vulgar and anonymous tyranny. It is all-permeating, all-thwarting; it blasts every budding novelty and sprig of genius with its omnipresent and fierce stupidity. Such a headless people has the mind of a worm and the claws of a dragon.

If art, all art, is concerned with truth, then a society in denial will not find much use for it.

When all lies, deceit, pretense is stripped away, what remains? The truth of a painting, or a book or a man.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.

The world is full of people who have stopped listening to themselves.

A book is somehow sacred. A dictator can kill and maim people, can sink to any kind of tyranny and only be hated, but when books are burned the ultimate in tyranny has happened. This we cannot forgive.

Truth exists independent of style. It involves all kinds of issues. Properly considered, it's a quest, a pursuit. To say that vérité is more truthful than something that is narrated is just misplaced. Completely wrong. And the fact that people still talk about it as though they're really talking about something... it puzzles me greatly. A moment of reflection about it tells you that it makes no sense!

In a room where people unanimously maintain a conspiracy of silence, one word of truth sounds like a pistol shot.

How wrong people always were when they said: 'It's better to know the worst than go on not knowing either way.' No; they had it exactly the wrong way round. Tell me the truth, doctor, I'd sooner know. But only if the truth is what I want to hear.

Ever heard of anyone executed for distributing copies of Grimm's fairy tales? Imagine people trying to smuggle copies of Hans Christian Andersen's works into China? The Bible, which has been called a mere collection of myths has suffered all of these fates: even today, copies of the Bible are banned and burned. There's something about this ancient book that threatens and frightens those in power.

If we attach more importance to what other people believe than to what we know to be true - if we value belonging over being - we will not attain authenticity.

I believe that a writer has to tell what they think is the truth in a human experience. The truth of the human experience cannot escape the political.

Why would you want to be politically correct when you can be right?

As a rule, people are afraid of truth. Each truth we discover in nature or social life, destroys the crutches on which we need to lean.

One of the most cowardly things ordinary people do is to shut their eyes to facts.

Fundamentally, people are suckers for the truth.

Don't join the book burners!

I'm no actor and I never have been. What people see on the screen is me.

Even if they're functioning out of ignorance, they are still participating and must be suppressed. In China, even one million people can be considered a small sum.

People think I'm into positive thinking. I'm not a positive thinking guy. I'm into the truth. I'm a hunter of human excellence.

If ignorance were enough to make things not exist, the world would be more like a lot of people think it is. But it's not. And it's not.