"Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the
whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction." Ray Bradbury said
it and I believe it. We've all heard the arguments psychologists make as to
whether one is a product of inheritance or of environment. If environment is
all we come in contact with, then I'm a product of mine. And of science fiction.
Many might think that statement insane, but it's true. I learned to read long
before I started school, mama read me stories until I memorized them and told
them back to her, and when I realized that that's what the lovely little symbols
on the page were for, I memorized them too. And I've been reading and memorizing
ever since. I'm full of random quotes, be it Shakespeare or Dickens or Lincoln
or Churchill, I can quote it. Most of my quotes, though, my favorites, the ones
that I believe in, come from Science Fiction.
Most peoples beliefs come mostly from their parents and their religion and from society on general. Mine come from societies light-years away and centuries in the future, or sometimes from societies just decades into the future from our own past, and that are now in the past themselves but never actually came to pass, of course that never mattered to me.
Science fiction is full of good advice, one of my strongest beliefs is something
Ray Bradbury said once, "If we listened to our intellect we'd never have a love
affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go in business because we'd
be cynical: 'It's gonna go wrong.' Or 'She's going to hurt me.' Or, 'I've had
a couple of bad love affairs, so therefore . . .' Well, that's nonsense. You're
going to miss life. You've got to jump off the cliff all the time and build
your wings on the way down." These and others are the words that I live by,
not because I was taught to, but because they are the truth to me. They speak
to my heart.
Clarence Day once said that "The world of books is the most remarkable creation
of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall, nations perish,
civilizations grow old and die out, and after an era of darkness, new races
build others. But in a world of books are volumes that have seen this happen
again and again and yet they live on, still young, still as fresh as the day
they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries
dead."