Next Club Meeting: April 20, 2024, at the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook from 11:00 am - 5:00 pm

The Animatrix Network is an anime & manga fan club located in the Southwest suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. We usually meet on the third Saturday of each month (except when holidays or conventions coincide). The meetings are free and open to the public. Join us for a day filled with anime.

This site provides news, reviews, commentaries, and previews of the world of anime and everything it inspires, such as live-action films, comics, music, art, and other weird things to enjoy and contemplate.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Ray Bradbury dies at age 91

"The writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream."
Ray Bradbury
(1920 - 2012)

Ray Douglas Bradbury (born August 22, 1920) passed away in Los Angeles, California, on June 5, 2012, at the age of 91, after a "lengthy illness".

The New York Times' obituary stated that Bradbury was "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream." The Los Angeles Times credited Bradbury with the ability "to write lyrically and evocatively of lands an imagination away, worlds he anchored in the here and now with a sense of visual clarity and small-town familiarity". Bradbury's grandson, Danny Karapetian, stated that Bradbury's works had "influenced so many artists, writers, teachers, scientists, and it's always really touching and comforting to hear their stories". Several celebrity fans of Bradbury paid tribute to the author by stating the influence of his works on their own careers and creations.
 
We say farewell to the man who brought us Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, by remembering some of his greatest quotes:

"There was always a minority afraid of something, and a great majority afraid of the dark, afraid of the future, afraid of the past, afraid of the present, afraid of themselves and shadows of themselves."

"People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better."

"We are the miracle of force and matter making itself over into imagination and will."

"We are an impossibility in an impossible universe."

"Science-fiction balances you on the cliff. Fantasy shoves you off."

"We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all."

"You've been put on the world to love the act of being alive."

"We do need knowledge. And perhaps in a thousand years we might pick smaller cliffs to jump off. The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are."

"If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you, and you'll never learn."

"Digression is the soul of wit. Take the philosophic asides away from Dante, Milton or Hamlet's father's ghost and what stays is dry bones."

"Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things."

"Learning to let go should be learned before learning to get. Life should be touched, not strangled."

"Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage."

"Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spent the rest of the day putting the pieces together."

"You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you."

"I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?"

"Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down."

"You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were."

"And what does the word quality mean? To me it means texture. This book has pores."

"I still love books ... Books smell good. They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your pocket."

"There's no use going to school unless your final destination is the library."

"Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man?"

"If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder."

"The Universe has shouted itself alive. We are one of the shouts."

"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."

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