“It was a pleasure to burn.”
Firestarter“It was a pleasure to burn.” is an opening epigraph whose compact declaration gives burning an unsettlingly positive charge before the novel’s first chapter begins.
Text and Attribution
The epigraph appears with the attribution “—Ray Bradbury,” followed by the title Fahrenheit 451. Its wording is presented as a borrowed line rather than as narration from the novel itself.
Placement and Effect
The quotation appears in the opening matter, before the location line “New York/Albany” and chapter 1. Its blunt equation of burning with pleasure establishes an immediate tension between destruction and enjoyment; the supplied passage gives no further explanation of how the novel develops that tension.
