Originally Posted 20 August 2011 08:14 AM

Ray, I have written a poem for your birthday and it can be sung to the tune of "Mother"..I send it to you with tons of love and mostly with tons of thanks for changing the way I think about life...Live Forever!
Ed Lineberry

B is for the Boy who'll live forever

R is for the Rocket Man you are

A is for the August you were born in

D is for the Dandelion Wine you've served

B is for the Beauty of your writing

U is for the Universe you love

R is for the Reading you've inspired

Y for Yestermorrows yet to come

Put them all together they spell Bradbury

The man who means the world to me

I love you Mr. Ray Bradbury, travel well my friend and rest in eternal peace knowing that you have touched so many lives with your expressions of love and that you shall indeed ,"Live Forever"...Ed Lineberry

Dearest Ray,

From the moment Douglas Spaulding realized in the bee-fried air that he was actually ALIVE! I have loved you and your writing. I cry now, but I rejoice in having lived while you wrote, learned much from your words, and increased my love of the world because of your lovely descriptions. You will truly live forever!

"SO, we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath, 5
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon."

The brass band, playing "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," marched and slammed back into town, and everyone took the day off.

“Death doesn't exist. It never did, it never will. But we've drawn so many pictures of it, so many years, trying to pin it down, comprehend it, we've got to thinking of it as an entity, strangely alive and greedy. All it is, however, is a stopped watch, a loss, an end, a darkness. Nothing.” - Something Wicked This Way Comes


Your watch has stopped as so many others that have reached their final tick. Yet you were not merely a purveyor of the present, but a seer of the human spirit. With your wisdom you reached into our true nature and scattered it forth into the future.

Your watch has stopped, but unlike so many others that have reached their final tick, yours will be right forever.

And it shouldn't go unnoticed that Ray passed at the same time that Venus made it's rare transit across the face of the sun. For a writer like Ray probably only comes along about as often as that. And perhaps that was Ray, god-speeding off to someplace new, where his imagination can grow even larger...

I dreaded this day for years, even when I was a younger man. I didn't ever want to get this news. And now that I have, I am very, very sad. What a magnificent mind! Thank you, Ray, for inspiring me in many ways, but mostly in helping to build my imagination, and in inspiring me to write.

I knew this day was coming, but had hoped not for some time. My life, and the lives of my students, has been so enriched by this wonderful man and his stories. He has always entertained, bedazzled, and given me so much to ponder. He truly will live forever in my heart and soul.

You guys all write such beautiful things and all I can think is THIS IS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!

Funeral Blues

W. H. Auden

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

In a 2010 interview Ray said:

“Every so often, late at night, I come downstairs, open one of my books, read a paragraph and say, My God. I sit there and cry because I feel that I’m not responsible for any of this. It’s from God. And I’m so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is ‘at play in the fields of the Lord.’ It’s been wonderful fun and I’ll be damned where any of it came from. I’ve been fortunate. Very fortunate.”

The Paris Review, Spring, 2010, Ray Bradbury: The Art of Fiction 203, interviewed by Sam Weller


May Ray's family and all who mourn him be comforted.

I can imagine a fan who loves Mr. B. and his works might someday, late at night, also open one of his books and sense his presence, maybe reading along over that reader's shoulder - and smiling.

Rest in peace Ray.


Walt Gottesman

"I long ago gave up trying to explain this enchantment from my early reading to friends or relatives. Its still with me. I've decided that growing up on Bradbury, Heinlein, Wyndham and all the others is like spending part of your youth in a foreign country. There are some things precious to you that others will never understand."

That is a quote from my first letter to Ray in 1988 which he answered to my astonished joy.

I can't find anything else to say. Ray was a huge part of my inner life.

So many here have left beautiful quotes from Ray's writing on death and aging. But wouldn't it be great if we could read what he has to say about what he is experiencing right now?

The year was 1969. Attending Alhambra High School, we were told a "very special guest" would be speaking to us at assembly that morning. Ray Bradbury was eloquent, and talked of interesting places and subjects that lit a fire under my young imagination. He mostly stressed that the mind could take you anywhere you wanted to go. And so it was, I became a fan of his writings and he led me to appreciate books for my entire life. Thank you Mr. Bradbury. The body is weak, but the mind's thoughts can live forever. As will yours my friend.

How can you thank someone who broadened your view and told you to go boldly forward? I love you, Ray! Godspeed!

I just read the news and headed straight here, to my friends and fellow loved ones of Ray.

"When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn't crying for him at all, but for the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I've never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on."
-Granger, Fahrenheit 451

Live Forever, Ray

One day, in a dusty bookshop, you changed my life forever. Thank you Ray. May all the mysteries of the universe now be revealed to you. Rest in Joy, Live Forever.

Ray,

Thank you so much for a lifetime of learning and entertainment.

I think the first time I was aware of your magic was when I was a little kid in the 70s, watching reruns of The Twilight Zone. "I Sing the Body Electric" completely turned me inside out and I realized that not everything is as it seems. There's always a little twist.

"Something Wicked This Way Comes" haunts me to this very day, especially when October comes around.

You are Mr. Electrico to generations of readers worldwide.

Live Forever!

A fan who is richer for having experienced your wonderful mind and imagination.