Essays on Ray Bradbury

August 22, 1920

June 5, 2012

Writer

Fantasy, science fiction, horror fiction, mystery fiction, magic realism

• Fahrenheit 451
• The Martian Chronicles
• Something Wicked This Way Comes
• The Illustrated Man

• American Academy of Arts and Letters (1954)
• Inkpot Award (1974)
• Daytime Emmy Award (1994)
• National Medal of Arts (2004)
• Pulitzer Prize Special Citation (2007)

• “You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
• “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.”
• “We are an impossibility in an impossible universe.”

August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012

Ray Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.

Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine

Predominant themes of death, of dissatisfaction with self, of the reality of evil and how to contend with it, and, finally, the attainment of self-knowledge appear in each of Bradbury's writings.

In Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury predicted the way that society would develop due to technology in the future and surprisingly, some of his predictions were not too far from the truth. Bradbury predicts society beginning to stop reading books in favor of screens.

“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.”
“We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”
“There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches.”