Ray Bradbury / Photo ©Jacques Sassier-Gallimard-Opale

Biographile’s This Week in History remembers events of the past, and the icons that set them in motion. If the below isn't enough for you, read more inspiring author quotes.

Today we celebrate Ray Bradbury, born ninety-five years ago on August 22, 1920.

Bradbury's claim to fame is, of course, Fahrenheit 451, a chilling dystopian novel depicting an America in which all books are banned and any that are found are burned. He also wrote extensively both before and after its 1953 publication, gaining fame for works like The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, in addition to his work writing screenplays and TV scripts. From his youngest years, he lived a life saturated in words and creating, even resorting to writing some of his earliest stories (at age eleven) on butcher paper during the Great Depression. And by the time he passed away in 2012, he had been awarded both a National Medal of Arts in 2004 and the National Book Foundation's Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 2000.

Threaded throughout his writing and his interviews is an unassailable sense of wonder, which, coupled with his boundless imagination, strikes a chord with his loyal readership. So in honor of his long and distinguished career, we've pulled together nine of our favorite thought-provoking, imaginative Bradbury quotes.

1. "Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down." (Brown Daily Herald, 1995).

2. "Life is like underwear, should be changed twice a day." (A Graveyard for Lunatics,1990).

3. "Mysteries abound where most we seek for answers." ("All flesh is one: what matter scores?" When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed, 1973).

4. "I wonder how many men, hiding their youngness, rise as I do, Saturday mornings, filled with the hope that Bugs Bunny, Yosemite Sam and Daffy Duck will be there waiting as our one true always and forever salvation?" ("Why Cartoons Are Forever", Los Angeles Times, 1989).

5. "Disbelief is catching. It rubs off on people." ("A Miracle of Rare Device", Playboy, 1962)

6. "People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it." (Beyond 1984: The People Machines, 1979).

7. "We were put here as witnesses to the miracle of life. We see the stars, and we want them. We are beholden to give back to the universe.... If we make landfall on another star system, we become immortal." (Speech to National School Board Association, 1995).

8. "If you can't read and write you can't think. Your thoughts are dispersed if you don't know how to read and write. You've got to be able to look at your thoughts on paper and discover what a fool you were." (Salon.com, 2001).

9. "To hell with more. I want better." (Beyond 1984: The People Machines, 1979).