Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury: life quotes

19 quotes

Well, after all, this is the age of the disposable tissue.
Blow your nose on a person, wad them, flush them away, reach for another, blow, wad, flush.
Everyone using everyone else's coattails.
How are you supposed to root for the home team when you don't even have a programme or know the names?
For that matter, what colour jerseys are they wearing as they trot out on to the field?

"People don't talk about anything."
"Oh, they must!"
"No, not anything. They name a lot of cars or clothes or swimming-pools mostly and say how swell! But they all say the same things and nobody says anything different from anyone else. And most of the time in the cafes they have the jokeboxes on and the same jokes most of the time, or the musical wall lit and all the coloured patterns running up and down, but it's only colour and all abstract."

You're afraid of making mistakes. Don't be. Mistakes can be profited by. Man, when I was young I shoved my ignorance in people's faces. They beat me with sticks. By the time I was forty my blunt instrument had been honed to a fine cutting point for me. If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you'll never learn. Now, pick up your feet, into the firehouse with you!