Fahrenheit 451

This quote is one that Bradbury attached before the story begins. It is a metaphor for the major theme of the book. It espouses rules because you are expected to. The price of mass conformity is stagnation and complacency. Society in this book had lost heart, soul, and meaning. Montag had to go against the "normal" to spark change and re-ignite the individual in a society that was dying for change.