Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury

"It was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed. With the
brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the
blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all
the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.
With his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all orange flame with the
thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that
burned the evening sky red and yellow and black. He strode in a swarm of fireflies. He wanted
above all, like the old joke, to shove a marshmallow on a stick in the furnace, while the flapping
pigeon-winged books died on the porch and lawn of the house. While the books went up in
sparkling whirls and blew away on a wind turned dark with burning."

The above quote is from Fahrenheit 451, my favorite

science fiction novel of all time, by Ray Bradbury. The

quote describes the main concept of the book and is very

appealing because it gives so much visual detail to the

scene. This story is set in a future where all books and

other written materials are forbidden. The main character's

(Guy Montag's) job is to burn books and the houses which the

books are hidden in. He never questions his actions until

he meets someone who tells him how it was in the past when

people didn'...

Ray Bradbury

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