- After finishing high school, he didn't have the money to go to college so instead went down to his local library to read three nights a week. In 10 years' time, he read all the books in the library and considered that to be his higher education instead.
- In 1950, he discovered comic-book publisher William M. Gaines (later famous for producing Mad magazine) had published several of his stories without his permission. Bradbury wrote Gaines a letter praising the artwork and treatment of his story, and politely asked for his royalty payment. He received the payment.
- He was the great-great-great grandson of Mary Bradbury, a woman who was tried in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, but escaped before she was to be hanged.
- Despite the anti-censorship message of "Farenheit 451", Bradbury has continually had to fight his publisher's censors who want to tamper or alter the language and tone of the book. He says that the irony is obviously lost on them.
- He once visited the set of Star Trek (1966) as a potential writer for the series. Crew members remembered him as being very polite and courteous, thinking he was already making himself at home. It later turned out that he never had any intention to join the writing team, but wanted to come anyway. He remained friends with series creator Gene Roddenberry until Gene's death on October 24, 1991.
- Had a nod in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) with the ship named the USS Bradbury.
- Though considered by many to be the greatest science-fiction writer of the of the 20th century, he suffers from a fear of flying and driving. He has never learned to drive, and did not fly in an airplane until October 1982.
- As a young boy, a friend once ridiculed his collection of science-fiction and comic books, and heckled him into throwing them away. A day later, Bradbury was heartbroken, feeling that he had trashed his best friends. He immediately rebuilt his collection.
- His original title for "Fahrenheit 451": was "The Fireman". He called his local fire department and asked them what the temperature at which paper burns, and was told "451 Fahrenheit". He reversed the order and used that as the title for the novel.
- He wrote the original manuscript of "Fahrenheit 451" on a rented typewriter in a public library, from handwritten notes and outlines. It first appeared in print in a shortened form (of about 25,000 words) in Galaxy magazine and later in its present length but in serial format in the just starting out Playboy magazine.
- He and famous animator Chuck Jones were close friends for more than 50 years.
- In the 1920s, his mother took him with her when she went to see silent films. He first saw Lon Chaney's The Phantom of the Opera (1925) when he was only three years old, and it had a lifelong impact on him.
- He voiced his displeasure at documentary filmmaker Michael Moore for appropriating the title of his book "Fahrenheit 451" for the documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004). However, Bradbury himself is the author of "Beyond 1984" (appropriated from George Orwell's "1984") and "Another Tale of Two Cities" (appropriated from Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities"). While book and story titles cannot be copyrighted, both Orwell and Dickens were long dead when Bradbury borrowed their titles, Bradbury was alive when Michael Moore (did so and Moore never bothered to ask Bradbury's permission.
- Had a series of short stories his publisher said would never sell, so he grouped them together into a novel and named it "The Martian Chronicles". He was paid just $500 for it.
- When he was a baby, his mother tied him to an apple tree so she could keep an eye on him while she hung up the laundry.
- As a bedtime story for each of his daughters, he read (in nightly installments) "Hound of the Baskervilles" by Arthur Conan Doyle.
- When his wife started having children, he stated, "It literally scared the hell out of me".
- The inspiration for his short story "The Pedestrian" came after he and a friend were out walking one night, and a policemen stopped them and questioned them because he deemed their behavior suspicious. The policemen let them go with a warning not to do it again.
- A hero of his was Italian director Federico Fellini. When they first met, as Bradbury claims, Fellini ran up to him, embraced him and said, "My twin! My twin!". They became great friends but never collaborated on any projects. Bradbury claimed that his lifelong love of Halloween was soured after Fellini died on October 31, 1993.
- Father of four daughters: Susan Bradbury, Ramona Bradbury, Bettina Bradbury and Alexandra Bradbury.
- Inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame (1999).
- As a young man, he once sold newspapers on a Los Angeles street corner.
- He was awarded Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters by French culture minister Frédéric Mitterrand in 2007.
- There is a noted irony in the names of two characters in his novel "Fahrenheit 451": "Montag" is also the name of a paper mill and "Faber" is a manufacturer of pencils. Bradbury insists that this was unintentional.
- National Public Radio's "Bradbury 13" (1984) was a 13-episode program based on many of his stories.
- Didn't eat a regular meal with his family until he was six years old. His father got tired of him drinking a baby bottle every day and smashed it in the sink.
- Son of Leonard Spaulding Bradbury, linesman with the Waukegan Bureau of Power and Light, and of Esther Marie Moberg.
- Was something of a technophobe. He never obtained a driver's license, never used a personal computer, and didn't own a television until his final years. Bradbury wrote on a manual typewriter until he was debilitated by a stroke in 1999, after which he dictated his manuscripts.
- In Chaplin's Goliath (1996), a documentary about silent film star Eric Campbell, the Rosedale Cemetary spokeswoman mistakenly claims Ray Bradbury is interred there.
- Following his death, he was interred at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. An asteroid discovered on February 24, 1992 was named 9766 Bradbury in his honor and an impact crater on the Moon was named Dandelion by the Apollo 15 astronauts after his novel "Dandelion Wine" (1957).
- While being best known for his science-fiction novels and films, he was a huge fan of comedians Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, attending Sons of the Desert--the team's fan club--meetings when he could, and he wrote a number of short stories about them, including "The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair", "The Laurel and Hardy Alpha Centauri Farewell Tour" and "Another Fine Mess", which was set on the steps on which they shot their famous short "The Music Box" (1932).
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6644 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on April 1, 2002.
- Recipient of a 2004 US National Medal of Arts, awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts.
- Paid tribute to in the music video "F**k Me, Ray Bradbury" by Rachel Bloom. Although he did not publicly comment on it, he was confirmed to have seen the video, and he met with Bloom.
- Ray Bradbury was well-known and much-beloved in science fiction and fantasy circles for writing stories of nostalgia, much like Jack Finney and, to a lesser extent, Alfred Bester.
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