On the Death of Ray Bradbury

Everyone at Promising Pages has books they love, that they’ve read a dozen times or more. And unfortunately, we all have that book that we’ve been meaning to read, that we see at the bookstore when we’re only there to get something else, because we have somewhere to be, something so unimportant to do that it can’t wait. We always have a million other things to read. For me, Fahrenheit 451 was that book, that book I somehow never finished. Ray Bradbury was a giant in literature and science fiction, and we owe so much to his works. They really seem prescient at times, haunting at others, and always beautiful in their style.

Born in 1920, Bradbury received a Pulitzer citation for “his distinguished, prolific and deeply influential career as an unmatched author of science fiction and fantasy” and published stories for seventy years, selling his first story in his early 20s, winning a coveted O. Henry Award and making him one of the most recognizable science fiction authors ever. Publishing prolifically, his work sought to reconcile the modern world with our past and our inevitable future and a way to change things for the better, no matter how dark or bleak it may look.

There’s no better way to pay homage to Ray Bradbury than through his own words, so below are a collection of quotes, pulled from various sources and books, that we hope inspire you to live and dream as big as one of the biggest science fiction authors who will ever live: 

“If you can’t read and write you can’t think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don’t know how to read and write. You’ve got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were.” (Salon.com)

“And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, […] He was an individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. […] How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands? He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.” (Fahrenheit 451)

He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on. Goodbye, Ray Bradbury. We’ll miss you.