Ray Bradbury

"Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"
"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you. And because we know each other."

"Sometimes I sneak around and listen... and do you know what?"
"What?"
"People don't talk about anything."

The fire was not burning; it was warming!... He hadn't known fire could look this way.

And then let's be frank, Lee, how long can you look at a sunset? Who wants a sunset to last? Who wants perfect temperature? Who wants air smelling good always? So after awhile, who would notice? Better, for a minute or two, a sunset. After that, let's have something else. People are like that, Lee. How could you forget?"
"Did I?"
"Sunsets we always liked because they only happen once and go away."

Can't trust people, that's the dirty part.

Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of non? combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely `brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with.

Better to keep it in the old heads, where no one can see it or suspect it.

We Earth Men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.
The only reason we didn’t set up hot-dog stands in the midst of the Egyptian temple of Karnak is because it was out of the way and served no large commercial purpose.

Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.

You always dread the unfamiliar.

She was the first person in a good many years I've really liked. She was the first person I can remember who looked straight at me as if I counted.

"Well," she said, "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."

Only if the third necessary thing could be given us. Number one, as I said, quality of information. Number two: leisure to digest it. And number three: the right to carry out actions based on what we learn from the inter-action of the first two.

Fahrenheit 451: The temperature at which book-paper catches fire and burns.

Why waste your final hours racing about your cage denying you're a squirrel?