Fahrenheit 451 Quotes

Context

If only it were a pleasure to burn. We'd save so much money on topical ointments.

This is the first sentence of Ray Bradbury's famous dystopian novel, and it definitely draws you in. If the first line had been "It was a pleasure to cut my nails" or "It was a pleasure to sit in traffic," most readers would already have fallen asleep mid-way through the first page. But how could it be a "pleasure to burn"? Our interest is immediately piqued.

Turns out the line is spoken by our protagonist, Guy Montag. He's a fireman, but but not the rushing-into-burning-buildings/rescuing-kitty-cats-from-tall-trees kind. He's living in a futuristic society where people called "firemen" are charged with the job of burning outlawed books. Not to keep warm or help with that nasty "literature overpopulation" problem, but because this society feels that certain books—pretty much anything that provokes thought or might inspire rebellion—are dangerous. Paranoid much?

At the beginning of the book, at least, Guy believes in what he's doing, so he considers it "a pleasure to burn." In other words, he feels he's doing his patriotic duty by helping to rid the world of provocative material.

Where you've heard it

You haven't heard it at your doctor's office, that's for sure.

"Pleasure to Burn" could not sound more like a song title, so of course there are multiple songs that have borrowed Bradbury's famous words: the German artist Moerbeck uses it, and it's also the title of an entire album by the group Systematic.

There are also a smattering of cigarette-related sites and companies that make use of the phrase, but we don't care to encourage that sort of thing, so we're not going to hyperlink to them. Take that, lung-killers.

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

More scary than pretentious, but we're a little concerned.