The problem in our country isn't with books being banned, but with people no longer reading. Look at the magazines, the newspapers around us – it's all junk, all trash, tidbits of news. The average TV ad has 120 images a minute. Everything just falls off your mind. … You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.
As quoted in "Bradbury Still Believes in Heat of ‘Fahrenheit 451’", interview by Misha Berson, in The Seattle Times (12 March 1993); later quoted in Reader's Digest and The Times Book of Quotations. The 1993 Seattle Times is the earliest verified source located. All other citations come later and either provide a direct reference to the Seattle Times' (chiefly: Reader's Digest, credited to "Ray Bradbury, quoted by Misha Berson in Seattle Times", in "Quotable Quotes", The Reader's Digest, Vol. 144, No. 861, January 1994, p. 25), or an indirect reference to the re-quoting in Reader's Digest (such as: The Times Book of Quotations (Philip Howard, ed.), 2000, Times Books and HarperCollins, p. 93.As quoted in "At 80, Ray Bradbury Still Fighting the Future He Foresaw", interview by Roger Moore, in The Peoria Journal Star (August 2000).
