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Future Quote by Ray Bradbury

“Maggie Botwin. Prim, quiet lady, like an upright piano, seeming taller than she was because of the way she sat, rose and walked, and the way she held her hands in her lap and the way she coifed her hair up on top of her head, in some fashion out of World War I. I had once heard her on a radio show…” quote by Ray Bradbury
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““Maggie Botwin. Prim, quiet lady, like an upright piano, seeming taller than she was because of the way she sat, rose and walked, and the way she held her hands in her lap and the way she coifed her hair up on top of her head, in some fashion out of World War I. I had once heard her on a radio show describe herself as a snake charmer. All that film whistling through her hands, sliding through her fingers, undulant and swift. All that time passing, but to pass and repass again. It was no different, she said, than life itself. The future rushed at you. You had a single instant, as it flashed by, to change it into an amiable, recognizable, and decent past. Instant by instant, tomorrow blinked in your grasp. If you did not seize without holding, shape without breaking, that continuity of moments, you left nothing behind. Your object, her object, all of our objects, was to mold and print ourselves on those single fits of future that, in the touching, aged into swiftly into vanishing yesterdays.””

Ray Bradbury

About This Quote

Source Novel: The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, 1951

A character reflects on time as a series of fleeting moments that must be seized and shaped, turning each instant into lasting meaning.

In simple terms: Time is a series of moments we must grasp and shape.

Key Takeaway

Seize each moment before it slips away.

Themes

time momentum existence agency impermanence

Mood

reflective poetic melancholic

Type

literary philosophical

When to use this quote

  • personal reflection
  • creative writing
  • character analysis
  • life planning

Key Concepts

philosophy literary description psychology

Questions to Reflect On

  • How do you decide which moments to shape?
  • What limits our ability to seize time?
A Different Perspective

The metaphor may over‑romanticize control over time, ignoring randomness.

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