Ray Bradbury and his true gift for words inspire me like no other writer. I always loved to hear him talk about his joy for life... You will be missed.

You are all so amazing and beautiful! Oh gosh.

So many beautiful, creative memories. I didn't think I could cry much any more, but now that I am really thinking about it - cried plenty.

I am the least of any, but yes, I am a writer because of Ray Bradbury and I am one of all of you too, and it is so wonderful to read all of your thoughts and feelings.

Yes, live forever.

This was very difficult to write. I will always remember, and always work for him.

http://www.asterling.com/2012/...maker-of-dreams.html

He was ice cream made with fresh cream, sugar and a vanilla bean, smooth and sleek and sweet on our tongues. He was a strong brown hand on our freckled arm: I am your friend! He was running across a field of grass forever under the summer sun. He was what we all believed when we were young and strong and loved the world. He was ever and all summer in a single day. He was Ray.

So much joy! So much wonder! So much love from one man!

I am reminded of meeting him and shaking his huge hand. His hands *were* so big and soft and warm. The man had the hands of a gentle kindly bear!
How beautifully appropriate!

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

The first book I read for pleasure was Fahrenheit 451... followed by more from Ray, and then Asimov and Bova.

Ray, Thank You for leaving so much behind... God Speed

In the small town where I grew up, there was a small library. So small, in fact, that by the time my parents moved us to what passes for the ‘big city’ when I was fourteen, I had literally read every single book in the fiction section, and was starting to wade thru the non-fiction for ANYTHING new to read. How did this happen to a farm town girl, a good girl, whose best prospects were to be a simple farm wife?

Two things.

First thing: my daddy was a reader; and he read to me--not the picture books my mother and grandmother used to teach me letters and words, so I read by myself at less than three by their diligence and love—-my daddy read me his own boy books. He read me Zane Grey, he read me The Hardy Boys, and he read me above all, his beloved and battered Barsoom. So, of course, at age 8, when Miss Alene the librarian, after much struggle and strife with my parents, allowed me to check books out from the adult side of the library, the first thing I took out was Tarzan—because, after all, ERB was our friend, my daddy’s and mine. And while Tarzan was a marvel, he was an Earthman, of course. And that was not…not…what a Barsoom fed girl wanted, was it? Was it?

The second thing I had mostly forgotten, but that headline this morning; it’s been like an acid flashback all day long, so clear.

I took the Tarzan books back-—well, I read them first-—but took them back and said to Miss Alene that there were no Martians in them: “Aren’t there ANY books here with Martians in them?”

She took me to the first shelf against the brick wall; and one shelf from the bottom was a row of books with the name Bradbury. After running her finger along the row, she said, “The book with the Martians is checked out right now. Why don’t you try this one?” and handed me a short story collection. I sat down at the corner table in the front window, and started reading. Reading The Veldt.

Everything…unlocked.

Oh, sometimes I struggled, at 8 and even at 10, with the words I had to look up in the dictionary, with understanding things…but I told you, my daddy read to me. And when he nearly died when I was 10, when it took years of surgeries for the surgeon's to rebuild what a second’s mistake had unraveled, I would read Ray Bradbury stories with Dad.

And what had been unlocked, those worlds outside I could just see thru that door at first, as I re-read and re-read the books on that shelf, it all became--

Possible.

I met him once, at a bookstore signing—just for that precious fraction—and do you know, I’d forgotten all this that day. I only said, “I love your work” or something else inane, and now I can’t type because I can’t conceive how I’m to breathe in a world where the man who gave me my world when I was so small—isn’t in this world anymore?

I can’t. I’ve been gasping all day. It’s like the oxygen has burned, and I have to adapt to an atmosphere with half the oxygen it had yesterday. But breath or no breath, and too late, it has to be said.

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for Possible.

A whole genre pays tribute: SF writers on what Ray means to them.

http://www.wired.com/underwire...ury-writer-memories/

quote:

Originally posted by Sheryl:
...I sat down at the corner table in the front window, and started reading. Reading The Veldt.

Everything…unlocked.

Oh, sometimes I struggled, at 8 and even at 10, with the words I had to look up in the dictionary, with understanding things…but I told you, my daddy read to me. And when he nearly died when I was 10, when it took years of surgeries for the surgeon's to rebuild what a second’s mistake had unraveled, I would read Ray Bradbury stories with Dad.

And what had been unlocked, those worlds outside I could just see thru that door at first, as I re-read and re-read the books on that shelf, it all became--

Possible.

I met him once, at a bookstore signing—just for that precious fraction—and do you know, I’d forgotten all this that day. I only said, “I love your work” or something else inane, and now I can’t type because I can’t conceive how I’m to breathe in a world where the man who gave me my world when I was so small—isn’t in this world anymore?

I can’t. I’ve been gasping all day. It’s like the oxygen has burned, and I have to adapt to an atmosphere with half the oxygen it had yesterday. But breath or no breath, and too late, it has to be said.

Thank you, Mr. Bradbury, for Possible.

Sheryl - so, so beautiful. You have written with eloquence what many of us feel.

Thank You Ray Bradbury, you will forever renew our Wonder.


For all who love Ray Bradbury...

BradburyWonder.jpg (240 Kb, 10 downloads) ToMetaphorsNearAndFar

The impact and lasting influence of Ray's life and work are discussed on Episode 105 of Jonathan Strahan's weekly podcast with Gary K. Wolfe.

You can link to it from Jonathan Strahan's blog:

http://www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp/

Poetic Imagery...
http://www.corbisimages.com/st...rs-curiosity?popup=1