Fahrenheit 451

Theme:

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, explores the themes of happiness, censorship, the individual versus the community, violence, and mass media. It’s a dystopic novel in that it describes a bleak, restrictive, and totalitarian society.

Summary:

It tells the story of Guy Montag and his transformation from a book-burning fireman to a book-reading rebel. Montag lives in an oppressive society that attempts to eliminate all sources of complexity, contradiction, and confusion to ensure uncomplicated happiness for all its citizens.

Famous Quotes:

“Books were only one type of receptacle where we stored a lot of things we were afraid we might forget. There is nothing magical in them, at all. The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.”

“There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house.”

“A book is a loaded gun.”

“So now you see why books are hated and feared? They show the pores of the face of life.”

“The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.”

“If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you and you’ll never learn.”

“We bombard people with sensation. That substitutes for thinking.”

“If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.”

“You’re afraid of making mistakes. Don’t be. Mistakes can be profited by.”

1“I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough, it’ll make sense.”

“To everything there is a season. Yes. A time to break down, and a time to build up. Yes. A time to keep silence and a time to speak. Yes, all that.”

“I don’t want to change sides and just be told what to do. There’s no reason to change if I do that.”

“I’ll hold onto the world tight some day. I’ve got one finger on it now; that’s a beginning.”

“We are all bits and pieces of history and literature and international law. Byron, Tom Paine, Machiavelli or Christ.”

“Stuff your eyes with wonder… live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds.”

Literary awards