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The Last Interview
Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations
Ray Bradbury was long the most influential sci-fi writer in the world, the poetic and visionary author of such classics as "Fahrenheit 451," "The Martian Chronicles," and "The Illustrated Man
"
But he also lived a fascinating life outside the parameters of sci-fi, and was a masterful raconteur of his own story, as he reveals in his wide-ranging and in-depth final interview with his acclaimed biographer, Sam Weller. After moving to Los Angeles, he became an inveterate fanboy of movie stars, spending hours waiting at studio gates to get autographs. He would later get to know many of Hollywood's most powerful figures when he became a major screenwriter, and he details here what it was like to work for legendary directors such as John Huston and Alfred Hitchcock. And then there are all the celebrities--from heads of state like Mikhail Gorbachev to rock stars like David Bowie and the members of Kiss--who went out of their way to arrange encounters with Bradbury.
But throughout that last talk, as well as the interviews collected here from earlier in his career, Bradbury constantly twists the elements of his life into a discussion of the influences and creative processes behind his remarkable developments and inventions for the literary form he mastered. Mixed with cheerful gossiping about his travels and the characters of his life, it makes for a rich reading experience and a revealing collection of interviews.
"
But he also lived a fascinating life outside the parameters of sci-fi, and was a masterful raconteur of his own story, as he reveals in his wide-ranging and in-depth final interview with his acclaimed biographer, Sam Weller. After moving to Los Angeles, he became an inveterate fanboy of movie stars, spending hours waiting at studio gates to get autographs. He would later get to know many of Hollywood's most powerful figures when he became a major screenwriter, and he details here what it was like to work for legendary directors such as John Huston and Alfred Hitchcock. And then there are all the celebrities--from heads of state like Mikhail Gorbachev to rock stars like David Bowie and the members of Kiss--who went out of their way to arrange encounters with Bradbury.
But throughout that last talk, as well as the interviews collected here from earlier in his career, Bradbury constantly twists the elements of his life into a discussion of the influences and creative processes behind his remarkable developments and inventions for the literary form he mastered. Mixed with cheerful gossiping about his travels and the characters of his life, it makes for a rich reading experience and a revealing collection of interviews.
112 pages, Paperback
First published December 2, 2014
21 people are currently reading
482 people want to read
About the author
Ray Bradbury
2,560 books25.1k followersRay Douglas Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction.
Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).
The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), and The October Country (1955). Other notable works include the coming of age novel Dandelion Wine (1957), the dark fantasy Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962) and the fictionalized memoir Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). He also wrote and consulted on screenplays and television scripts, including Moby Dick and It Came from Outer Space. Many of his works were adapted into television and film productions as well as comic books. Bradbury also wrote poetry which has been published in several collections, such as They Have Not Seen the Stars (2001).
The New York Times called Bradbury "An author whose fanciful imagination, poetic prose, and mature understanding of human character have won him an international reputation" and "the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
October 21, 2022
Part of the Last Interview series. I love this quote mentioned in the text: "You don't have to destroy books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." Ray Bradbury
March 6, 2023
"You don't have to destroy books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
- Ray Bradbury
"Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down."
- Ray Bradbury
"Without libraries there would be no past. Without libraries there will be no future."
- Ray Bradbury
"His gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world."
- Barack Obama
--
A fascinating glimpse into the mind and life of Ray Bradbury. Probably one of the most imaginative and underrated literary giants of the 20th century.
Some tidbits and observations:
- He never drove a car in his life, but was invited to drive the Mars Rover across the surface of Mars back in 2012. NASA even issued a Martian driver's license to him.
- He was fanboy even when he was famous. He once wrote to invite Edgar Rice Burroughs to an event, but was declined
- Aldous Huxley called him a poet.
- Bradbury considered himself to be a writer of fantasy and not science fiction.
- A chance encounter with Hemingway's son on a bus to UCLA, whom he didn't recognize and who didn't recognize him, but said he was a big fan of Ray Bradbury.
- He may have had a hand in getting the British government to commemorate 221B Baker Street.
What's less known is his contributions to modern American architecture, from designing the USA pavilion at the 1964 New York World Fair, to the EPCOT at Disneyland, to the Orbitron in Disneyland Paris, to inspiring Glendale Galleria in Los Angeles, to Century City mall, and Horton Plaza in San Francisco, parts of Hollywood...the man had a vivid imagination for redesigning Hollywood and building a library themed with ancient Egyptian culture. Probably "the world's only accidental architect."
- Known for his prolific output. He just spent hours writing short stories, plays, essays, articles and screenplays. He designed the covers of his own books. He really was a creature of the visual-cinematic age emerging in the 20th century. Truly a Renaissance Man, spanning the entirety of his age.
- Fahrenheit 451 was written in 9 days in the evenings in the basement of the UCLA library where typewriters could be rented out for a dime for 30 mins. Total cost was $9.80. Do the math and you can calculate that he wrote it in 49 hours over 9 days. He loved libraries, and so naturally the novel is about a world where they're endangered.
- Fascinating insights into human creative process for Fahrenheit 451, and how serendipitous encounters and deep passions powered his creativity to give rise to some of his most memorable stories. Libraries inspired "Fahrenheit 451", dinosaurs inspired "The Fog Horn" (which launched his second career as a Hollywood screenwriter), a late-night run-in with a policeman on a lonely street inspired "The Pedestrian"; "Something Wicked This Way Comes" was born from a failed script he wrote for Gene Kelly.
- Writer, essayist, screenwriter, accidental architect - Ray Bradbury was truly a Renaissance Man. He enjoyed multiple careers simultaneously in the time that most of us just get to enjoy just one.
- He never drove a car, never owned a computer, flew an airplane for the first time at the age of 62 (~1983).
- He used to write one story a week, every week, from 1941 still the day he died.
- All the essays, articles and interviews in this collection have been transcribed by Sam Weller, Bradbury's Boswell, in his final years. In Weller, Bradbury found an eager listener and disciple, and the son he never had.
- Growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, Bradbury met veterans of the Civil War, and as "the poet of the Space Age" he associated with the veterans of the Mercury and Apollo space programs. Lived and participated in an unprecedented era of progress.
- Had a plan to be buried on Mars with his ashes placed in a Campbell's tomato soup can. Bought a plot next to his wife. In the end wanted to be buried next to his grandfather in Waukegan. Credits his grandfather with introducing him to H.G. Wells, radio technology, and the power of literature and the image when he was 2-3, and introducing him to the future.
- Similar to Jorge Luis Borges, I guess part of Bradbury's oeuvre is about dreams, and the link between dreams, darkness, night and mythology, of mystique laced with hidden danger.
- Serendipitous encounters with strangers unlocked new collaborations. He knew how to jump from one thing to the next, and not leave any opportunity unturned. A true hustler.
- Sci-fi is really just a criticism of the present. Some works do it more subtly and artfully than others.
Ray Bradbury is the bridge between the Lost Generation of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the Golden Age of science fiction of the 1940s to 60s, the Space Age, the Beatniks, Steinbeck and Capote, the pop culture of the 70s and 80s onwards, and the 21st century. He met so many people so casually before he was famous, or before they were famous, or when they were both famous.
He's often seen as a sci-fi or fantasy writer or a genre writer, but he's actually also one of the great literary greats of the 20th century, up there with Steinbeck and Fitzgerald.
The key takeaway? Write for yourself. The money will follow if you are being true to your own essence. This book helped me decide the kind of writer I want to be, and the kind of stuff I want to write.
--
"You do have a lot of energy. Throughout the hundreds if short stories, novels, essays, poems, screenplays, teleplays, architectural designs, and plays that you've written and produced yourself, you were a very hands-on father. Where did you get all the energy to accomplish so much?"
"Ideas make energy. We respond to our work. People often asked me where I got my energy, and I responded, "From my ideas." Over the years, they provoked me into getting out of bed and waking up and running to the typewriter or grabbing a pen and paper in the middle of the night and find a piece of paper because I had to write something down before it was gone."
"Did your ideas ever make you feel anxious? You've always had so much percolating inside your head. Did your desire to accomplish so many things - to get so many ideas down - ever cause anxiety?"
"You have a nest full of birds and they all have their mouths open. They say, "Feed men, feed me, feed me!" The one that shouts the loudest is the one that gets fed."
"You certainly have said over the years that you did television work for income. Is that somehow different than writing your fiction to make money?"
"I had a family and had to earn an income. That's different. I was providing. But with my novels and short stories, most people don't realize that I wrote all of my material over the years for free. When I would write a novel I wasn't paid for it. When it was finished, when all the work was done, when all the play was done, then I sent it out to the world to see if it would sell. So I always wrote exactly what I wanted. You don't write for money, you write for time. I bought time for myself over the years, so I could wrote what was true to me. The same with my theater company. I've never made a dime with it. I've produced dozens of plays over the years -- I wrote them for me. Every few years I would say to Maggie, "Is this the year we open the window and throw the money out?" And she would say, "You want to put on another play, don't you?" And I would say, "Yes. Yes, I do." So I never wrote for money. I wrote for me."
- Ray Bradbury
--
"Was it luck? Hard work? Talent?"
"I suppose it was a combination. God gives you the genetics, and if you are smart, you feel yourself, and say, "Which way shall I go?" So it's a combination of what God gave you and then having the drive. But a lot of people have the talent but don't do anything with it. That's a very mysterious thing."
"What is that, so you suppose? Fear of failure?"
"No, I think it is pure genetics. You were born to be you and I was born to be me. That's a real mystery. But why do you have so much energy? Why do you do what you do? I can't tell you, and you can't tell me why I have done what I have done."
"Did luck ever play a hand in your writing career?"
"No, I think I made my luck...my brother never had that form of guts. He was an athlete, a surfer, body builder. So it is a gift of genetics. You need to instinctively know when to really push things and in other instances know when to run like hell."
- Ray Bradbury
--
"If you write an ordinary story in ordinary times, people are not going to read it. If you write a fantasy, people will think you are not writing about them, and in doing so, you will get to their guts and to their hearts. You want to stay away from appealing to their minds -- you want to reach their hearts. And when they are reading the book and they finish it, they realize, my God, that is me! I thought he was writing about the future, but this story is just pretending to be about the future."
- Ray Bradbury
"When I was in high school I wrote a short story called "The Ravine." But I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't realize how beautiful it was. I was too busy imitating Conan Doyle and P.G. Wodehouse and Edge Allan Poe. I was madly in love with all these people. I didn't see I was hurting myself by imitating. We all have a million fragments of memory inside of us that we need to pull our and discover and hold up to the light. You can't do that when you are imitating others. I wasn't being me, and so I wrote that story about the ravine and ignored it. It wasn't until a few years later, when I was twenty-two, that I wrote "The Lake" and I went back to my childhood and delved deep inside myself....all their years went by without finding myself -- what was really inside me -- not Edgar Allan Poe, not Conan Doyle, not Edgar Rice Burroughs."
- Ray Bradbury
"He taught me how to write objectively. He doesn't tell you what a character thinks or feels. You never get any thoughts of characters. What a character looks at or notices is how you get the entire feeling of atmosphere and emotion. You very rarely get a character's thoughts. The reader guesses at them by what a character sees or does."
- Ray Bradbury
"All of life is a fabulous lie that we prove to be wrong. The marriage vow is a lie that you take, between people, hoping that the lie becomes the truth. "I promise to love you forever." Well, we hope to make that true."
- Ray Bradbury
""Headed for literary distinction," is a lie. I was going nowhere when I was seventeen years old. I had no talent. I couldn't write a short story. I couldn't write an essay or a poem or a play. I wa nothing. So I had to lie to myself when I graduated and put that in the yearbook. I was in the senior play a month before graduation, and we had two performances. Before the evening performance, I went up on top of the tower at my high school all by myself. I looked at the setting sun, and I knew that this was the last night when I would be famous for a while. I was going to be onstage, and I would be applauded, and once I graduated I would go out into the world, and I would he lost for a long while. So you have to lie and say, "Headed for literary distinction." Totally impossible! Totally impossible! I had no talent. But I lied to myself. I look at that quote and that picture in the yearbook, and I wonder who the hell that boy was. So "The Toynbee Convector" is just that. It's a lie that is told so everyone will work to turn it into the truth."
- Ray Bradbury
"Work is the only answer. You have to stay busy. If you dwell on sad things they can destroy you. The problem with death is it's so damaged permanent. I remember at my father's funeral fifty years ago, my mother saying the most terrible words I've ever heard -- looking down at my father and saying, "I'll never see him again. I'll never see him again." Such terrible words! The truth can be so horrible and so immense at times that you must stand up to it and say, "I will not surrender. I will carry on and stay busy.""
- Ray Bradbury
"I am not a science fiction writer -- I'm an idea writer. Any idea that intrigues me, immediately, I grab on to it and run with it. There are so many ideas in the world. They surround us everywhere. You must feed yourself with them. I learned over a long period of time to follow them, to go with them. We all need to find that special thing that is within us. Laurence Olivier, the great actor, said many years ago that inside his body when he was ten years old he felt a gyroscope spinning and humming and tilting him into acting. What each of us must do is try and listen to this gyroscope that is turning inside our souls and leaning us into acting or painting or, for me, ideas and writing. You have to go with that. If you don't listen to the gyroscope, and you go the other way, you fall off balance and collapse. I've always listened, you see. That's why I've never worked a day in my life. If you love what you do, it's not work."
- Ray Bradbury
"To wake up one day and realize that I am on the shelves with L. Frank Baum on one end and, at the other end, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and, down below, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells -- that's it, huh? Everything I did was pure love. Pure love. And if you live that way, you've had a great life."
- Ray Bradbury
"Well, that's what we men are all about. Let's be honest, women love us if we control our destinies. Women fall in love with men who do things."
- Ray Bradbury
"The metaphor that life is simply an interruption of a more glorious dream...We've all been in that situation: waking up in the middle of an absolutely glorious dream and wanting so badly to fall back asleep and go back to it. For you to say that the interruption of the dream is life - that is beautiful."
- Ray Bradbury
"I wrote a poem recently called "Doing is Being." Don't think about doing -- do. Become a Zen Buddhist. Don't think about things. Do them. Make a list of your loves and behave with all those loves and become the lover of the world."
- Ray Bradbury
"Let love be your center. Let love be your power. Do what you love and love what you do. Do what you love and love what you do. Don't do anything for money. Everything should be for love. At the end of writing what you love for a long time, the money will come as a reward later in life, but it's got to come later. Forget the money. Do what you love and love what you do."- Ray Bradbury
"I give that advice to all you writers. Write one story a week for fifty-two weeks. So at the end of the year you become a writer. You've got to write a lot. A lot of power comes from doing a lot. It's much better than doing less."
- Ray Bradbury
"I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of not living."
- Ray Bradbury
"Science fiction is the art of the possible, and fantasy is the art of the impossible."
- Ray Bradbury
"...real books smell, they feel, and they have memories and the pollens of Egypt..."
- Ray Bradbury
"You can make things beautiful that are not beautiful. Magic does this and so does writing."
- Ray Bradbury
"My subconscious is almost always right. It makes the decision for me. It rarely fills. When I come up with an idea, I'll make notes and put them away. When I go back to it, my instincts tell me if I should return to the idea and finish the story. My subconscious lets me know - I don't decide by intellect."
- Ray Bradbury
"People will always give advice to a writer to slant, to write for the money. Don't do that. Don't do that. You will sicken and die. If you turn away from you -- who you are, what you are, what you dream, what you need -- you are going to wind up so unhappy, so miserable. It's not worth it. Being poor isn't so bad as long as you have your imagination and what you are. Bring rich for the wrong reason is a lousy business. You aren't rich at all. I've known a lot of Hollywood writers over the years who made ten times my income, and they were profoundly unhappy. Because they wrote things they never should have written. They never went on vacation. They never went to Europe and saw London or Paris or Rome. They were afraid that if they ever left Hollywood, they would be replaced. And they were probably right. They were replaceable. But when you write from within, if you write from within and are true to who you are, you are original and you cannot be replaced. No wonder these writers were scared! Nothing was written out of their hearts irrational ganglia. And so the lesson is, of course, that you must never turn away from the essential you. If you turn away from who you are, you will sicken. You will age ahead of your peers and so you must learn to turn inwards, to your own experiences, articles your own memories, your passion, your loves and hatreds - you will then begin to summon the essence of you. As you write these things down, one by one, the stories will emerge like a series of magician's handkerchiefs. You've seen a magician's show you a hat that is empty, and then he pulls a red scarf out. And then he shows you hat again, and it's empty, and he pulls out a green scarf. And he shows you the hat again, and it's empty, and he pulls three scarves out -- red, green, and yellow, tied to one another. He shows you the hat again, and he pulls out twenty handkerchiefs of twenty different colours. And that is the interior of your head. That's what is in your mind waiting to come out. All those bright colours. Most writers don't understand these things are there. They are too busy worrying about publication, or money. But if you work to pull the scarves from the hat, one by one, more will emerge, you will write more honest stories, and you will discover the essence of you."
- Ray Bradbury
"You need to instinctively know when to really push things and in other instances know when to run like hell."
- Ray Bradbury
"He also believes very much in sort of trusting the subconscious and writing quickly. He thinks a lot of writers take too long to write by overthinking, and he's a quick writer because he rejects overthrowing when it comes to his own process. Any more advice to aspiring writing that you will give everybody?"
"Go home tonight, and pick up your telephone, and talk to those people who don't believe in you and tell them to go to hell."
- Ray Bradbury
- Ray Bradbury
"Jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down."
- Ray Bradbury
"Without libraries there would be no past. Without libraries there will be no future."
- Ray Bradbury
"His gift for storytelling reshaped our culture and expanded our world."
- Barack Obama
--
A fascinating glimpse into the mind and life of Ray Bradbury. Probably one of the most imaginative and underrated literary giants of the 20th century.
Some tidbits and observations:
- He never drove a car in his life, but was invited to drive the Mars Rover across the surface of Mars back in 2012. NASA even issued a Martian driver's license to him.
- He was fanboy even when he was famous. He once wrote to invite Edgar Rice Burroughs to an event, but was declined
- Aldous Huxley called him a poet.
- Bradbury considered himself to be a writer of fantasy and not science fiction.
- A chance encounter with Hemingway's son on a bus to UCLA, whom he didn't recognize and who didn't recognize him, but said he was a big fan of Ray Bradbury.
- He may have had a hand in getting the British government to commemorate 221B Baker Street.
What's less known is his contributions to modern American architecture, from designing the USA pavilion at the 1964 New York World Fair, to the EPCOT at Disneyland, to the Orbitron in Disneyland Paris, to inspiring Glendale Galleria in Los Angeles, to Century City mall, and Horton Plaza in San Francisco, parts of Hollywood...the man had a vivid imagination for redesigning Hollywood and building a library themed with ancient Egyptian culture. Probably "the world's only accidental architect."
- Known for his prolific output. He just spent hours writing short stories, plays, essays, articles and screenplays. He designed the covers of his own books. He really was a creature of the visual-cinematic age emerging in the 20th century. Truly a Renaissance Man, spanning the entirety of his age.
- Fahrenheit 451 was written in 9 days in the evenings in the basement of the UCLA library where typewriters could be rented out for a dime for 30 mins. Total cost was $9.80. Do the math and you can calculate that he wrote it in 49 hours over 9 days. He loved libraries, and so naturally the novel is about a world where they're endangered.
- Fascinating insights into human creative process for Fahrenheit 451, and how serendipitous encounters and deep passions powered his creativity to give rise to some of his most memorable stories. Libraries inspired "Fahrenheit 451", dinosaurs inspired "The Fog Horn" (which launched his second career as a Hollywood screenwriter), a late-night run-in with a policeman on a lonely street inspired "The Pedestrian"; "Something Wicked This Way Comes" was born from a failed script he wrote for Gene Kelly.
- Writer, essayist, screenwriter, accidental architect - Ray Bradbury was truly a Renaissance Man. He enjoyed multiple careers simultaneously in the time that most of us just get to enjoy just one.
- He never drove a car, never owned a computer, flew an airplane for the first time at the age of 62 (~1983).
- He used to write one story a week, every week, from 1941 still the day he died.
- All the essays, articles and interviews in this collection have been transcribed by Sam Weller, Bradbury's Boswell, in his final years. In Weller, Bradbury found an eager listener and disciple, and the son he never had.
- Growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, Bradbury met veterans of the Civil War, and as "the poet of the Space Age" he associated with the veterans of the Mercury and Apollo space programs. Lived and participated in an unprecedented era of progress.
- Had a plan to be buried on Mars with his ashes placed in a Campbell's tomato soup can. Bought a plot next to his wife. In the end wanted to be buried next to his grandfather in Waukegan. Credits his grandfather with introducing him to H.G. Wells, radio technology, and the power of literature and the image when he was 2-3, and introducing him to the future.
- Similar to Jorge Luis Borges, I guess part of Bradbury's oeuvre is about dreams, and the link between dreams, darkness, night and mythology, of mystique laced with hidden danger.
- Serendipitous encounters with strangers unlocked new collaborations. He knew how to jump from one thing to the next, and not leave any opportunity unturned. A true hustler.
- Sci-fi is really just a criticism of the present. Some works do it more subtly and artfully than others.
Ray Bradbury is the bridge between the Lost Generation of Hemingway and Fitzgerald, the Golden Age of science fiction of the 1940s to 60s, the Space Age, the Beatniks, Steinbeck and Capote, the pop culture of the 70s and 80s onwards, and the 21st century. He met so many people so casually before he was famous, or before they were famous, or when they were both famous.
He's often seen as a sci-fi or fantasy writer or a genre writer, but he's actually also one of the great literary greats of the 20th century, up there with Steinbeck and Fitzgerald.
The key takeaway? Write for yourself. The money will follow if you are being true to your own essence. This book helped me decide the kind of writer I want to be, and the kind of stuff I want to write.
--
"You do have a lot of energy. Throughout the hundreds if short stories, novels, essays, poems, screenplays, teleplays, architectural designs, and plays that you've written and produced yourself, you were a very hands-on father. Where did you get all the energy to accomplish so much?"
"Ideas make energy. We respond to our work. People often asked me where I got my energy, and I responded, "From my ideas." Over the years, they provoked me into getting out of bed and waking up and running to the typewriter or grabbing a pen and paper in the middle of the night and find a piece of paper because I had to write something down before it was gone."
"Did your ideas ever make you feel anxious? You've always had so much percolating inside your head. Did your desire to accomplish so many things - to get so many ideas down - ever cause anxiety?"
"You have a nest full of birds and they all have their mouths open. They say, "Feed men, feed me, feed me!" The one that shouts the loudest is the one that gets fed."
"You certainly have said over the years that you did television work for income. Is that somehow different than writing your fiction to make money?"
"I had a family and had to earn an income. That's different. I was providing. But with my novels and short stories, most people don't realize that I wrote all of my material over the years for free. When I would write a novel I wasn't paid for it. When it was finished, when all the work was done, when all the play was done, then I sent it out to the world to see if it would sell. So I always wrote exactly what I wanted. You don't write for money, you write for time. I bought time for myself over the years, so I could wrote what was true to me. The same with my theater company. I've never made a dime with it. I've produced dozens of plays over the years -- I wrote them for me. Every few years I would say to Maggie, "Is this the year we open the window and throw the money out?" And she would say, "You want to put on another play, don't you?" And I would say, "Yes. Yes, I do." So I never wrote for money. I wrote for me."
- Ray Bradbury
--
"Was it luck? Hard work? Talent?"
"I suppose it was a combination. God gives you the genetics, and if you are smart, you feel yourself, and say, "Which way shall I go?" So it's a combination of what God gave you and then having the drive. But a lot of people have the talent but don't do anything with it. That's a very mysterious thing."
"What is that, so you suppose? Fear of failure?"
"No, I think it is pure genetics. You were born to be you and I was born to be me. That's a real mystery. But why do you have so much energy? Why do you do what you do? I can't tell you, and you can't tell me why I have done what I have done."
"Did luck ever play a hand in your writing career?"
"No, I think I made my luck...my brother never had that form of guts. He was an athlete, a surfer, body builder. So it is a gift of genetics. You need to instinctively know when to really push things and in other instances know when to run like hell."
- Ray Bradbury
--
"If you write an ordinary story in ordinary times, people are not going to read it. If you write a fantasy, people will think you are not writing about them, and in doing so, you will get to their guts and to their hearts. You want to stay away from appealing to their minds -- you want to reach their hearts. And when they are reading the book and they finish it, they realize, my God, that is me! I thought he was writing about the future, but this story is just pretending to be about the future."
- Ray Bradbury
"When I was in high school I wrote a short story called "The Ravine." But I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't realize how beautiful it was. I was too busy imitating Conan Doyle and P.G. Wodehouse and Edge Allan Poe. I was madly in love with all these people. I didn't see I was hurting myself by imitating. We all have a million fragments of memory inside of us that we need to pull our and discover and hold up to the light. You can't do that when you are imitating others. I wasn't being me, and so I wrote that story about the ravine and ignored it. It wasn't until a few years later, when I was twenty-two, that I wrote "The Lake" and I went back to my childhood and delved deep inside myself....all their years went by without finding myself -- what was really inside me -- not Edgar Allan Poe, not Conan Doyle, not Edgar Rice Burroughs."
- Ray Bradbury
"He taught me how to write objectively. He doesn't tell you what a character thinks or feels. You never get any thoughts of characters. What a character looks at or notices is how you get the entire feeling of atmosphere and emotion. You very rarely get a character's thoughts. The reader guesses at them by what a character sees or does."
- Ray Bradbury
"All of life is a fabulous lie that we prove to be wrong. The marriage vow is a lie that you take, between people, hoping that the lie becomes the truth. "I promise to love you forever." Well, we hope to make that true."
- Ray Bradbury
""Headed for literary distinction," is a lie. I was going nowhere when I was seventeen years old. I had no talent. I couldn't write a short story. I couldn't write an essay or a poem or a play. I wa nothing. So I had to lie to myself when I graduated and put that in the yearbook. I was in the senior play a month before graduation, and we had two performances. Before the evening performance, I went up on top of the tower at my high school all by myself. I looked at the setting sun, and I knew that this was the last night when I would be famous for a while. I was going to be onstage, and I would be applauded, and once I graduated I would go out into the world, and I would he lost for a long while. So you have to lie and say, "Headed for literary distinction." Totally impossible! Totally impossible! I had no talent. But I lied to myself. I look at that quote and that picture in the yearbook, and I wonder who the hell that boy was. So "The Toynbee Convector" is just that. It's a lie that is told so everyone will work to turn it into the truth."
- Ray Bradbury
"Work is the only answer. You have to stay busy. If you dwell on sad things they can destroy you. The problem with death is it's so damaged permanent. I remember at my father's funeral fifty years ago, my mother saying the most terrible words I've ever heard -- looking down at my father and saying, "I'll never see him again. I'll never see him again." Such terrible words! The truth can be so horrible and so immense at times that you must stand up to it and say, "I will not surrender. I will carry on and stay busy.""
- Ray Bradbury
"I am not a science fiction writer -- I'm an idea writer. Any idea that intrigues me, immediately, I grab on to it and run with it. There are so many ideas in the world. They surround us everywhere. You must feed yourself with them. I learned over a long period of time to follow them, to go with them. We all need to find that special thing that is within us. Laurence Olivier, the great actor, said many years ago that inside his body when he was ten years old he felt a gyroscope spinning and humming and tilting him into acting. What each of us must do is try and listen to this gyroscope that is turning inside our souls and leaning us into acting or painting or, for me, ideas and writing. You have to go with that. If you don't listen to the gyroscope, and you go the other way, you fall off balance and collapse. I've always listened, you see. That's why I've never worked a day in my life. If you love what you do, it's not work."
- Ray Bradbury
"To wake up one day and realize that I am on the shelves with L. Frank Baum on one end and, at the other end, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and, down below, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells -- that's it, huh? Everything I did was pure love. Pure love. And if you live that way, you've had a great life."
- Ray Bradbury
"Well, that's what we men are all about. Let's be honest, women love us if we control our destinies. Women fall in love with men who do things."
- Ray Bradbury
"The metaphor that life is simply an interruption of a more glorious dream...We've all been in that situation: waking up in the middle of an absolutely glorious dream and wanting so badly to fall back asleep and go back to it. For you to say that the interruption of the dream is life - that is beautiful."
- Ray Bradbury
"I wrote a poem recently called "Doing is Being." Don't think about doing -- do. Become a Zen Buddhist. Don't think about things. Do them. Make a list of your loves and behave with all those loves and become the lover of the world."
- Ray Bradbury
"Let love be your center. Let love be your power. Do what you love and love what you do. Do what you love and love what you do. Don't do anything for money. Everything should be for love. At the end of writing what you love for a long time, the money will come as a reward later in life, but it's got to come later. Forget the money. Do what you love and love what you do."- Ray Bradbury
"I give that advice to all you writers. Write one story a week for fifty-two weeks. So at the end of the year you become a writer. You've got to write a lot. A lot of power comes from doing a lot. It's much better than doing less."
- Ray Bradbury
"I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of not living."
- Ray Bradbury
"Science fiction is the art of the possible, and fantasy is the art of the impossible."
- Ray Bradbury
"...real books smell, they feel, and they have memories and the pollens of Egypt..."
- Ray Bradbury
"You can make things beautiful that are not beautiful. Magic does this and so does writing."
- Ray Bradbury
"My subconscious is almost always right. It makes the decision for me. It rarely fills. When I come up with an idea, I'll make notes and put them away. When I go back to it, my instincts tell me if I should return to the idea and finish the story. My subconscious lets me know - I don't decide by intellect."
- Ray Bradbury
"People will always give advice to a writer to slant, to write for the money. Don't do that. Don't do that. You will sicken and die. If you turn away from you -- who you are, what you are, what you dream, what you need -- you are going to wind up so unhappy, so miserable. It's not worth it. Being poor isn't so bad as long as you have your imagination and what you are. Bring rich for the wrong reason is a lousy business. You aren't rich at all. I've known a lot of Hollywood writers over the years who made ten times my income, and they were profoundly unhappy. Because they wrote things they never should have written. They never went on vacation. They never went to Europe and saw London or Paris or Rome. They were afraid that if they ever left Hollywood, they would be replaced. And they were probably right. They were replaceable. But when you write from within, if you write from within and are true to who you are, you are original and you cannot be replaced. No wonder these writers were scared! Nothing was written out of their hearts irrational ganglia. And so the lesson is, of course, that you must never turn away from the essential you. If you turn away from who you are, you will sicken. You will age ahead of your peers and so you must learn to turn inwards, to your own experiences, articles your own memories, your passion, your loves and hatreds - you will then begin to summon the essence of you. As you write these things down, one by one, the stories will emerge like a series of magician's handkerchiefs. You've seen a magician's show you a hat that is empty, and then he pulls a red scarf out. And then he shows you hat again, and it's empty, and he pulls out a green scarf. And he shows you the hat again, and it's empty, and he pulls three scarves out -- red, green, and yellow, tied to one another. He shows you the hat again, and he pulls out twenty handkerchiefs of twenty different colours. And that is the interior of your head. That's what is in your mind waiting to come out. All those bright colours. Most writers don't understand these things are there. They are too busy worrying about publication, or money. But if you work to pull the scarves from the hat, one by one, more will emerge, you will write more honest stories, and you will discover the essence of you."
- Ray Bradbury
"You need to instinctively know when to really push things and in other instances know when to run like hell."
- Ray Bradbury
"He also believes very much in sort of trusting the subconscious and writing quickly. He thinks a lot of writers take too long to write by overthinking, and he's a quick writer because he rejects overthrowing when it comes to his own process. Any more advice to aspiring writing that you will give everybody?"
"Go home tonight, and pick up your telephone, and talk to those people who don't believe in you and tell them to go to hell."
- Ray Bradbury
April 30, 2018
This book provides such an amazing perspective into the life of one of my favourite authors, showcasing a side of his personal life and how he is adored by his fans. It makes him even more likeable as he talks so passionately about his body of work, about how he would classify his books genre-wise, about the importance of writing fantasy and the remarkable force that drives him.
Alas the content itself is a remarkable 5 star but the persistent issue if very poor printing in all books of the last interview series is a shame, so many missing alphabets is an unpardonable mistake from a publishing company.
Alas the content itself is a remarkable 5 star but the persistent issue if very poor printing in all books of the last interview series is a shame, so many missing alphabets is an unpardonable mistake from a publishing company.
June 21, 2015
Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite short story authors, and while there is a nice continuity by having the same interviewer in each of these, there just feels like there is something missing and too insider for Ray Bradbury to say anything too new or revolutionary. It's the final victory lap of a strong and hugely influential modern American writer.
February 24, 2018
A short read but a fantastic little burst of inspiration. If you're a fan of Ray Bradbury, then you definitely need this. A wonderful breath of fresh air. Also, there was one essay in here that brought a tear to my eye.
March 22, 2015
A nice mix of old and new personal stories, shared in an interview format. I wish there were more. It's hard to say goodbye.
April 8, 2024
"Without libraries there would be no past. Without libraries there will be no future."
April 22, 2020
I really enjoyed these interviews with Ray Bradbury. He proves himself to be the genial gentleman, which I think comes across in his writing. Bradbury reminisces about his childhood and the influences which shaped him. One quote stands out for me: "Without libraries there would be no past, without libraries there will be no future." Hear, hear Ray!
March 30, 2024
A little thin, considering it's 4 interviews over 100 pages. But I appreciate the gentle approach Sam Weller takes. These interviews are an exercise in love and not meant to push too hard or be super deep. His respect, care, and tenderness for Ray Bradbury are clear. You get a peak behind the curtain of a beloved and influential writer which, as these things tend to do, paints a picture of a more complex figure than the one you (or I) might have built up in our own head. It reads like exactly what it is: a series of fragmented conversations with a man in his twilight years. It's interesting because I both wanted more and less from it. More context, more history, more nuance, more follow up. But by the time I finished I thought maybe I'd be happier to leave Bradbury as the towering Martian of my imagination.
December 2, 2021
*chef's kiss*
🐈🥲♥️🤌🏼
🐈🥲♥️🤌🏼
December 16, 2021
Quick read; but as always with Bradbury it is full of inspiration and insight. I really want to read more of the authors who influenced him, considering he is one the biggest influences on my writing. Much respect to one of the greats!
December 24, 2023
راز زندگی عاشق بودن است. با عشق خودتان را پیش بینی می کنید . آنچه می خواهید همان چیزی است که به دست می آورید. شما چیزها را پیش بینی نمی کنید شما آنها را می سازید. به چیزها فکر نکن فقط عمل کنید،
December 29, 2014
3.5
Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations, edited by Sam Weller, is actually several interviews, conducted over the last two years of Bradbury’s life, plus a handful of rough essays dictated by Bradbury to Weller, his long-time biographer. Despite this, the book is relatively slim, coming in at about 90 pages, with a lot of white space. This is not meant, though, to be an in-depth look at (or listen to) Bradbury; for that you’ll want to turn to other sources, including Weller’s The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury and... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations, edited by Sam Weller, is actually several interviews, conducted over the last two years of Bradbury’s life, plus a handful of rough essays dictated by Bradbury to Weller, his long-time biographer. Despite this, the book is relatively slim, coming in at about 90 pages, with a lot of white space. This is not meant, though, to be an in-depth look at (or listen to) Bradbury; for that you’ll want to turn to other sources, including Weller’s The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury and... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/revi...
June 12, 2016
Bradbury does not come off as a very sympathetic character here -- he seems quite arrogant, self-centered, and dismissive of the notion that anything he doesn't personally find interesting could have real value to anyone else. His personal interviewer (who conducted all interviews in this book) also seems to serve primarily as an echo chamber for Bradbury's self-promotion. The first of the four interviews had essentially zero content from Bradbury himself; the only substance came from editorial comments from his interviewer. If nothing else, a good reminder that just because you enjoy a creative work, it doesn't mean you'd necessarily like the author.
September 16, 2023
At times the book is beautifully haunting while at other times it is very odd and uncomfortable. A few of the interviews Bradbury comes across as if he has totally lost touch with reality or as if he thinks he is the greatest American author of all times. He comes across as dismissive or rambles about remembering every single moment of his existence including his birth.
The “essay” he dictated to a tape recorder days after his cat Hally died near the end of his life will stick with me for a long time. It was lovely, but quite upsetting. He really seems to grasp at his own mortality near the end.
The “essay” he dictated to a tape recorder days after his cat Hally died near the end of his life will stick with me for a long time. It was lovely, but quite upsetting. He really seems to grasp at his own mortality near the end.
November 30, 2016
Listening to Bradbury talk about life, love, writing, joy, and ideas is energizing and inspiring. "I'm an idea writer. Any idea that intrigues me, immediately, I grab on to it and run with it. There are so many ideas in the world. They surround us everywhere. You must feed yourself with them" (79-80). Sam Weller, his biographer, conducts the interviews and clearly has great respect and even love for the man he came to know so well. Warm, engaging, and a must for fans of speculative fiction.
June 19, 2017
While I have not read nearly as much Bradbury as some other authors, everything I have read was impactful so I was fascinated by the chance to "hear" his voice towards the end of an illustrious career and very full life. In that respect this slim volume of interviews from the last two years of his life met all my expectations. The interviewer (and biographer) was occasionally intrusive but this was minor quibble compared warm and charming tales and wise viewpoints from Bradbury.
January 19, 2018
واقعا خواندنی بود
از سختیهای زندگیش و اینکه در چه شرایطی فارنهایت ۴۵۱ رو نوشت تا جایی که به عنوان فردی در آستانهٔ ۹۰ سالگی عاشق کاری بودن رو به عنوان اصلیترین گامِ هر کاری توصیه میکنه
بعضی قسمتهای جالبش رو هم در حدی که فضای گودریدز اجازه میداد، حین خواندن وارد کردم
از سختیهای زندگیش و اینکه در چه شرایطی فارنهایت ۴۵۱ رو نوشت تا جایی که به عنوان فردی در آستانهٔ ۹۰ سالگی عاشق کاری بودن رو به عنوان اصلیترین گامِ هر کاری توصیه میکنه
بعضی قسمتهای جالبش رو هم در حدی که فضای گودریدز اجازه میداد، حین خواندن وارد کردم
February 15, 2019
Interesting to see Bradbury's thought processes and his thoughts in general about a wide variety of topics. Quote that stuck out to me: "Women love us if we control our destinies. Women fall in love with men who do things."
June 8, 2025
Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations edited by Sam Weller contains four of Bradbury’s final conversations and interviews with his biographer Sam Weller. In these conversations, Bradbury reveals how he predicted flat screen TVs, wireless earbuds, and a multitude of other technologies, when he’d never even driven a car in his whole life. The famous author also discusses the process of writing Fahrenheit 451, his most famous work, in the basement of UCLA’s Lawrence Clark Powell Library on a rental typewriter, his inadvertent impact on architecture, and his childhood growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, among a multitude of other things. I absolutely loved this book! Having read Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and over 100 of Bradbury’s short stories, I loved getting to know the author himself on a personal level. It was both beautiful and inspiring to read Bradbury’s reflection on his life and all that he had learned, just months before he passed away at age 91. I enjoyed hearing everything Bradbury had to say, but above all, I really loved the way the famous fantasy writer (he didn’t consider himself a science fiction writer, despite being given that label by the whole world) described his love and passion for books, reading, and libraries. Bradbury’s obsession with books and libraries is ever-present in Fahrenheit 451, yet it certainly makes me smile and laugh to hear him talk about his love for the way books smell and feel (maybe the biggest bibliophile there was)! I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Bradbury’s, or is just looking for some wholehearted reflection and life advice from an 89 to 91-year-old man!
August 18, 2020
Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations edited by Sam Weller contains four of Bradbury’s final conversations and interviews with his biographer Sam Weller. In these conversations, Bradbury reveals how he predicted flat screen TVs, wireless earbuds, and a multitude of other technologies, when he’d never even driven a car in his whole life. The famous author also discusses the process of writing Fahrenheit 451, his most famous work, in the basement of UCLA’s Lawrence Clark Powell Library on a rental typewriter, his inadvertent impact on architecture, and his childhood growing up in Waukegan, Illinois, among a multitude of other things. I absolutely loved this book! Having read Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and over 100 of Bradbury’s short stories, I loved getting to know the author himself on a personal level. It was both beautiful and inspiring to read Bradbury’s reflection on his life and all that he had learned, just months before he passed away at age 91. I enjoyed hearing everything Bradbury had to say, but above all, I really loved the way the famous fantasy writer (he didn’t consider himself a science fiction writer, despite being given that label by the whole world) described his love and passion for books, reading, and libraries. Bradbury’s obsession with books and libraries is ever-present in Fahrenheit 451, yet it certainly makes me smile and laugh to hear him talk about his love for the way books smell and feel (maybe the biggest bibliophile there was)! I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of Bradbury’s, or is just looking for some wholehearted reflection and life advice from an 89 to 91-year-old man!
January 22, 2025
Mr. Bradbury had a significant impact on the world through his fiction writing and his work on films, TV, and more. I remember growing up being enthralled by his work. Specifically, Something Wicked This Way Comes and Fahrenheit 451. The latter book is especially relevant in today's social landscape.
These interviews took place from 2010 to 2012, during Bradbury's last three years of life. Bradbury shares some interesting stories and ideas through the interviews, and the book certainly made me want to learn more about his life. I hope to read one of his biographies in the future, which I know the editor of this book has written about Bradbury.
If you have never read Bradbury, don't start here, but with some of his works. If you're a fan of his, you will truly enjoy these interviews. I know I did.
These interviews took place from 2010 to 2012, during Bradbury's last three years of life. Bradbury shares some interesting stories and ideas through the interviews, and the book certainly made me want to learn more about his life. I hope to read one of his biographies in the future, which I know the editor of this book has written about Bradbury.
If you have never read Bradbury, don't start here, but with some of his works. If you're a fan of his, you will truly enjoy these interviews. I know I did.
June 17, 2020
Bradbury was one of those authors whose talent I'm always in awe of even if every story or novel he wrote (even some of the big ones) didn't always land for me the way they seemed to for others. It's always fascinating to get a look into his ideas and process, though, and this does a good job of that. My only complaint is that all the interviews are conducted by the same person, and his official biographer at that, so they feel a little "samey" after a while, and you can never shake the feeling that you're coming into a conversation that already started before you got there. Except that this conversation began in, like, the early 90s.
May 9, 2020
"You don't have to destroy books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them." - Ray Bradbury
I fell in love with Ray Bradbury's writing around a decade ago after reading Fahrenheit 451, and since then I've read and collected a number of his work. Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations is a beautifully honest look at Bradbury in his final years of life, he and Sam Weller had a very intimate and understanding relationship when discussing Bradbury's life in literature and life in general.
Even in this interview and essay four part collection Bradbury's poetical and lyrical style of writing shines through.
I fell in love with Ray Bradbury's writing around a decade ago after reading Fahrenheit 451, and since then I've read and collected a number of his work. Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations is a beautifully honest look at Bradbury in his final years of life, he and Sam Weller had a very intimate and understanding relationship when discussing Bradbury's life in literature and life in general.
Even in this interview and essay four part collection Bradbury's poetical and lyrical style of writing shines through.
June 22, 2021
2.5 to be fair, love bradbury but this felt overbearing somewhat, also redundant, most things said here are things he's said elsewhere, in far better interviews. i guess this is a book for diehard bradbury lovers :/ i do love bradbury but... whatever. some of the things said in lieu of his personal life were interesting - he's met ernest hemingway's son, he's danced with carson mccullers - but overall still meh.
April 2, 2018
"If you turn away from you—who you are, what you are, what you dream, what you need—you are going to wind up so unhappy, so miserable. It’s not worth it. Being poor isn’t so bad as long as you have your imagination and what you are. Being rich for the wrong reason is a lousy business. You aren’t rich at all."
Read
December 1, 2019Can’t rate a book of interviews but I just want to say I love Bradbury even more than I used to now. The things he said and the amount of sheer passion and love he has for books and writing is inspiring.
Might take up his idea and do one short story a week next year!
Might take up his idea and do one short story a week next year!
May 27, 2023
This is an excellent book of interviews of one of my favorite authors, Ray Bradbury. The interviews all took place near the end of his life and provide a fascinating look into the heart and mind of this great author.
July 11, 2024
Ray, you absolute cutie! I think the only reason I am not rating this higher is for the very simple fact that this isn't as lengthy as it's supposed to be to convey the greater ideas and really just more of Bradbury.
May 22, 2018
A great read for people who know Bradbury's works and for people who want to get to know Bradbury's works.
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