Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the abundance of both valuable and worthless things in our culture.
Ray Bradbury highlights the duality present in modern culture, where amidst a wealth of information, ideas, and creativity ('treasures'), there also exists a significant amount of superficiality and meaningless content ('trash'). It encourages individuals to discern between what is valuable and what is not, ultimately advocating for an appreciation of deeper, richer cultural experiences.
In practice
In a speech about consumerism, you might reference this quote to highlight the dual nature of modern culture.
I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. Ray Bradbury, 1967 interview (Doing the Math - that means for every story he sold, he wrote six "un-publishable" ones. Keep typing!)
I never went to college, so I went to the library.
There must be something in books, something we canβt imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You donβt stay for nothing.
I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.
The first thing a writer should be is - excited. He should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms. Without such vigor, he might as well be out picking peaches or digging ditches; God knows it'd be better for his health.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
Such is the brutalization of commercial ethics in this country that no one can feel anything more delicate than the velvet touch of a soft buck.
Pacifism, the preaching of peace in the abstract, is one of the means of duping the working class.
Let me have my tax money go for my protection and not for my prosecution. Let my tax money go for the protection of me. Protect my home, protect my streets, protect my car, protect my life, protect my property...worry about becoming a human being and not about how you can prevent others from enjoying their lives because of your own inability to adjust to life.
You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
This overcoming of all the usual barriers between the individual and the Absolute is the great mystic achievement. In mystic states we both become one with the Absolute and we become aware of our oneness. This is the everlasting and triumphant mystical tradition, hardly altered by differences of clime or creed.
War does horrible things to human beings, to societies. It brings out the best, but most often the worst, in our human nature.
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