Sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury on God, ‘monsters and angels’
By John Blake, CNN
August 2, 2010 12:33 p.m. EDT
Ray Bradbury turns 90 this month, but his house, which is filled with stuffed animals and toys, looks like a playhouse.
(CNN) — Ray Bradbury lives in a rambling Los Angeles home full of stuffed dinosaurs, a tin robot pushing an ice cream cart, and a life-sized Bullwinkle the Moose doll lounging in a cushioned chair.
The 89-year-old science fiction author watches Fox News Channel by day, Turner Classic Movies by night. He spends the rest of his time summoning “the monsters and angels” of his imagination for his enchanting tales.
Bradbury’s imagination has yielded classic books such as “Fahrenheit 451,” “The Martian Chronicles” and 600 short stories that predicted everything from the emergence of ATMs to live broadcasts of fugitive car chases.
Bradbury, who turns 90 this month, says he will sometimes open one of his books late at night and cry out thanks to God.
“I sit there and cry because I haven’t done any of this,” he told Sam Weller, his biographer and friend. “It’s a God-given thing, and I’m so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is, ‘At play in the fields of the Lord.’ ”
Bradbury’s stories are filled with references to God and faith, but he’s rarely talked at length about his religious beliefs, until now.
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He describes himself as a “delicatessen religionist.” He’s inspired by Eastern and Western religions.
The center of his faith, though, is love. Everything — the reason he decided to write his first short story at 12; his 56-year marriage to his muse and late wife, Maggie; his friendships with everyone from Walt Disney to Alfred Hitchcock — is based on love.
Bradbury is in love with love.