Ray Bradbury Quotes

Whether I'm writing scripts or prose, the goal is identical. To give pleasure. Now whether I succeed or not is up for debate, and, mostly, I fail. But I try. I like to make things. It's a way to stay busy during one's ephemeral and confusing life.

I continue to write. It's just one of those things that I do. I'll have periods when I write and periods when I don't. But you don't want it to become a discipline really. If it becomes a discipline, it becomes a chore and that's no good.

I have always felt like an artist when I work on a book. I see no reason why the word should always be confined to writers of fiction and poetry.

One, something emotional has to be at stake. There has to be something important for me that I'm writing about. And then two, I have to have a formal idea. Something has to be being worked out in poetry.

I could not live by literature if only to begin with, because of the slow maturing of my work and its special character.

When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and is it is cool and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit again.

The art of writing books is not yet invented. But it is at the point of being invented. Fragments of this nature are literary seeds. There may be many an infertile grain among them: nevertheless, if only some come up!

Writing a book isn’t an easy process nor is it always enjoyable, but it is one of life’s most satisfying achievements.

The secret to writing is writing. Lots of people I know talk about writing. They will tell me about the book they are going to write, or are thinking about writing, or may write some day in the future. And I know they will never do it. If someone is serious about writing, then they will sit down every day and put some words down on paper.

I think one of the reasons I'm so thrilled with writing is because it is an act of reading for me at the same time, which is why my revisions are so sustained.

I suppose I am a born novelist, for the things I imagine are more vital and vivid to me than the things I remember.

The most important thing for a writer to do is to write. It really doesn't matter what you write as long as you are able to write fluidly, very quickly, very effortlessly. It needs to become not second nature but really first nature to you. And read; you need to read and you need to read excellent books and then some bad books. Not as many bad books, but some bad books, so that you can see what both look like and why both are what they are.

I enjoy adapting my own work, or anybody's work. I like to adapt books.

I had originally been looking at writing, including fiction.

I work every day. I write every day. I walk around in silent conversation with my latest unfinished songs.

One of the things that I love about writing novels is that it really doesn't matter what next step you take as long as you're pursuing some intuition or instinct. Of course, then, intuitions or instincts don't make for great novels, but they often make for good first drafts.

When I have time, I write other things. I'm working on a book, I paint, I sculpt, I play with my dog, I watch television - I catch up on South Park or movies or whatever I've missed, normal stuff.

Of course, literature is the only spiritual and humane career. Even painting tends to dumness, and music turns people erotic, whereas the more you write the nicer you become.

It's hard to find a book that's safe to write. Because one always goes to dark or difficult places.

Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.

I think I write in order to discover on my shelf a new book that I would enjoy reading, or to see a new play that would engross me.

You just write and you don't try to make sense of it. You just put it down the way you got it.

Be willing and unafraid to write badly, because often the bad stuff...forms a base on which to build something better.

There isn't a single day I don't do some writing -- if you don't, you won't have a book. When you're self-employed it is very easy to burn away your time instead -- answering e-mails, surfing the Internet, or hanging out with friends. You really must have the discipline to sit down and write every day. Most of what I am writing is living in the back of my head or in my subconscious. I find if I write every day, my subconscious will do the job for me.

Domesticity is the enemy of art. I don't know if that's true. You can write good happy songs. So, I don't think it's necessarily happiness. But I think self-satisfaction is maybe the enemy. It's kind of better to think, "Tomorrow night I'm gonna sing it better." There is this forward effort. It feels to me right, it feels human.