Illustration Based On Ray Bradburys The Fog Horn

Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury, photos around my hometown

“We have everything we need to be happy but we aren't happy.

Something is missing... It is not books you need, it's some of the things that are in books. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.”

Ray Bradbury

"My stories run up and bite me in the leg — I respond by writing them down — everything that goes on during the bite. When I finish, the idea lets go and runs off."

Ray Bradbury, science-fiction writer (22nd August 1920-2012)

“That’s the whole secret: To do things that excite you.”

— Ray Bradbury, The Art of Fiction No. 203

"So the dragon ate the white swan. I haven’t seen her for years. I can’t even remember what she looks like. I feel her, though. She’s safe inside, still alive; the essential swan hasn’t changed a feather. Do you know, there are some mornings in spring or fall, when I wake and think, I’ll run across the fields into the woods and pick wild strawberries! Or I’ll swim in the lake, or I’ll dance all night tonight until dawn! And then, in a rage, discover I’m in this old and ruined dragon. I’m the princess in the crumbled tower, no way out, waiting for her Prince Charming."

Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

“I don't know. We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing."

— Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

"Science fiction is the art of the possible."

—Ray Bradbury, born on this day in 1920

From our stacks: Illustration for "A Sound of Thunder," from The Golden Apples of the Sun. Ray Bradbury. With Drawings by Joe Mugnaini. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1972.