Background Image
...
I Think The Only Way We Can Grow And Get On In This World Is To Accept The Fact We're Not Perfect And Live Accordingly.
-Ray Bradbury
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

I Think The Only

Ray Bradbury
...
I Think The Only Way We Can Grow And Get On In This World Is To Accept The Fact We're Not Perfect And Live Accordingly.

Understanding the Quote: "i think the only way we can grow and get on in..."

This quote by Ray Bradbury reflects deeply on the theme of thinking. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Thinking, Perfect, World, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Ray Bradbury interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is celebrated for insightful thoughts on thinking and perfect. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 6
Topic
Thinking
Perfect
World
More From Ray Bradbury
You Must Live Feverishly In A Library. Colleges Are Not Going To Do Any Good Unless You Are Raised And Live In A Library Everyday Of Your Life.
College
Everyday
Library
I Believe In Creative Failing - To Contine To Write Poems That Fail And Fail And Fail Until A Day Comes When You've Got A Thousand Poems Behind You And You're Relaxed And You Finally Write A Good Poem.
Believe
Writing
Creative
Poetry Expands The Senses And Keeps Them In Prime Condition. It Keeps You Aware Of Your Nose, Your Eye, Your Ear, Your Tongue, Your Hand.
Eye
Hands
Noses
I Still Love Books. Nothing A Computer Can Do Can Compare To A Book. You Can't Really Put A Book On The Internet. Three Companies Have Offered To Put Books By Me On The Net, And I Said, 'if You Can Make Something That Has A Nice Jacket, Nice Paper With That Nice Smell, Then We'll Talk.' All The Computer Can Give You Is A Manuscript. People Don't Want To Read Manuscripts. They Want To Read Books. Books Smell Good. They Look Good. You Can Press It To Your Bosom. You Can Carry It In Your Pocket.
Nice
Book
Smell
And Besides, I Like To Cry. After I Cry Hard It's Like It's Morning Again And I'm Starting The Day Over.
Morning
Start The Day
Cry
The Sun Burnt Every Day. It Burnt Time. The World Rushed In A Circle And Turned On Its Axis And Time Was Busy Burning The Years And The People Anyway, Without Any Help From Him. So If He Burnt Things With The Firemen, And The Sun Burnt Time, That Meant Everything Burnt!
Axes
Years
Circles
The History Of Science Fiction Started In The Caves 20,000 Years Ago. The Ideas On The Walls Of The Cave Were Problems To Be Solved. It's Problem Solving. Primitive Scientific Knowledge, Primitive Dreams, Primitive Blueprinting: To Solve Problems.
Dream
Wall
Years
Work. Don't Think. Relax.
Thinking
Relaxation
Relax
For Everyone Nowadays Knows, Absolutely Is Certain, That Nothing Bad Will Ever Happen To Me. Others Die, I Go On. There Are No Consequences And No Responsibilities. Except That There Are. But Let's Not Talk About Them, Eh? By The Time The Consequences Catch Up To You, It's Too Late, Isn't It, Montag?
Responsibility
Up To You
Too Late
I Spent Three Days A Week For 10 Years Educating Myself In The Public Library, And It's Better Than College. People Should Educate Themselves - You Can Get A Complete Education For No Money. At The End Of 10 Years, I Had Read Every Book In The Library And I'd Written A Thousand Stories.
Education
Book
College
His Flesh Took Paleness From His Bones.
Flesh
Bones
There Is Too Much Government Today. We've Got To Remember The Government Should Be By The People, Of The People, And For The People.
Government
People
Today
And Some Days, He Went On, Were Days Of Hearing Every Trump And Trill Of The Universe. Some Days Were Good For Tasting And Some For Touching. And Some Days Were Good For All The Senses At Once. This Day Now, He Nodded, Smelled As If A Great And Nameless Orchard Had Grown Up Overnight Beyond The Hills To Fill The Entire Visible Land With Its Warm Freshness. The Air Felt Like Rain, But There Were No Clouds.
Rain
Land
Clouds
I Believe In Libraries Because Most Students Don't Have Any Money.
Believe
Library
Students
The Most Dangerous Thing You Can Do Is Know Who You Are.
Dangerous
Knows
Can Do
You Either Have An Imaginative Mind Or You Don't. All Of My Writing Is God-given. I Don't Write My Stories - They Write Themselves.
Writing
Mind
Stories
We Earth Men Have A Talent For Ruining Big, Beautiful Things. The Only Reason We Didn't Set Up Hot-dog Stands In The Midst Of The Egyptian Temple Of Karnak Is Because It Was Out Of The Way And Served No Large Commercial Purpose.
Beautiful
Dog
Men
Without Libraries What Have We? We Have No Past And No Future.
Book
Reading
Past
...we're Allotted A Little Space On Earth And That We Survive In That Wilderness That Can Take Back What It Has Given, As Easily As Blowing Its Breath On Us Or Sending The Sea To Tell Us We Are Not So Big. When We Forget How Close The Wilderness Is In The Night, My Grandpa Said, Someday It Will Come In And Get Us, For We Will Have Forgotten How Terrible And Real It Can Be.
Real
Night
Sea
Science Is No More Than An Investigation Of A Miracle We Can Never Explain, And Art Is An Interpretation Of That Miracle.
Inspirational
Life
Art
Thank God For That. You Can Shut Them, Say, 'hold On A Moment.' You Play God To It. But Who Has Ever Torn Himself From The Claw That Encloses You When You Drop A Seed In A Tv Parlour? It Grows You Any Shape It Wishes! It Is An Environment As Real As The World. It Becomes And Is The Truth. Books Can Be Beaten Down With Reason. But With All My Knowledge And Scepticism, I Have Never Been Able To Argue With A One-hundred-piece Symphony Orchestra, Full Colour, Three Dimensions, And I Being In And Part Of Those Incredible Parlours.
Real
Book
Play
If Teachers And Grammar School Editors Find My Jawbreaker Sentences Shatter Their Mushmilk Teeth, Let Them Eat Stale Cake Dunked In Weak Tea Of Their Own Ungodly Manufacture.
Teacher
School
Editors
I Am A Child Of The Poisonous Wind That Copulated With The East River On An Oil-slick, Garbage Infested Midnight. I Turn About On My Own Parentage. I Inoculate Against Those Very Biles That Brought Me To Light. I Am A Serum Born Of Venoms. I Am The Antibody Of All Time. I Am The Cure. You Do Of The City, Do You Not? Manhattan Is Your Punisher, Let Me Be You Shield.
Children
Light
Wind
Mysteries Abound Where Most We Seek For Answers.
Answers
Mystery
Everything Of Mine Is Permeated With My Love Of Ideas-both Big And Small. It Doesn't Matter What It Is, As Long As It Grabs Me And Holds Me, Facinates Me. And Then I'll Run Out And Something About It... I Write For Fun.
Running
Fun
Writing
I Wish You A Wrestling Match With Your Creative Muse That Will Last A Lifetime. ... I Wish Craziness And Foolishness And Madness Upon You. May You Live With Hysteria, And Out Of It Make Fine Stories - Science Fiction Or Otherwise. Which Finally Means, May You Be In Love Every Day For The Next 20,000 Days. And Out Of That Love, Remake A World.
Mean
Wrestling
Hysteria
Thinking Little At All About Nothing In Particular.
Thinking
Littles
Particular
Melt All The Guns, I Thought, Break The Knives, Burn The Guillotines-and The Malicious Will Still Write Letters That Kill.
Writing
Gun
Knives
My Characters Talk To One Another, And When It Reaches A Certain Pitch Of Excitement I Jump Out Of Bed And Run And Trap Them Before They Are Gone.
Running
Character
Writing
Bees Do Have A Smell, You Know, And If They Don't They Should, For Their Feet Are Dusted With Spices From A Million Flowers.
Summer
Flower
Smell
We Meet On The Common Ground Of An Uncommon Age And Share Out Our Gifts Of Dark And Light, Good And Bad, Simple Joy And Not So Simple Sorrow.
Dark
Simple
Light
May You Be In Love Every Day For The Next 20,000 Days. And Out Of That Love, Remake A World.
Love
Romantic
World
Remember, The Firemen Are Rarely Necessary. The Public Itself Stopped Reading Of Its Own Accord.
Reading
Remember
Fireman
Far Away, In The Meadow, Shadows Flickered In The Mirror's Maze, As If Parts Of Someone's Life, Yet Unborn, Were Trapped There, Waiting To Be Lived.
Mirrors
Waiting
Shadow
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.
Writing
Thinking
Looks
I’m The Thing You Most Desire, You Represent The Thing I Least Desire, Death. It’s Just The Opposite Of Love.
Opposites
Desire
What Is It About Fire That's So Lovely? No Matter What Age We Are, What Draws Us To It?...the Thing Man Wanted To Invent, But Never Did...if You Let It Go On, It'd Burn Our Lifetimes Out. What Is Fire? It Is A Mystery. Scientists Give Us Gobbledygook About Friction And Molecules. But They Don't Really Know. Its Real Beauty Is That It Destroys Responsibility And Consequences.
Real
Responsibility
Men
It Doesn't Matter What You Do...so Long As You Change Something From The Way It Was Before You Touched It Into Something That's Like You After You Take Your Hands Away.
Hands
Long
Legacy
For These Beings, Fall Is Ever The Normal Season, The Only Weather, There Be No Choice Beyond. Where Do They Come From? The Dust. Where Do They Go? The Grave. Does Blood Stir Their Veins? No: The Night Wind. What Ticks In Their Head? The Worm. What Speaks From Their Mouth? The Toad. What Sees From Their Eye? The Snake. What Hears With Their Ear? The Abyss Between The Stars. They Sift The Human Storm For Souls, Eat Flesh Of Reason, Fill Tombs With Sinners. They Frenzy Forth. Such Are The Autumn People.
Stars
Fall
Eye
Only If The Third Necessary Thing Could Be Given Us. Number One, As I Said: Quality Of Information. Number Two: Leisure To Digest It. And Number Three: The Right To Carry Out Actions Based On What We Learn From The Interaction Of The First Two.
Two
Numbers
Quality
The Very First Experiments With Building Rockets And Firing Them Off Were Carried Out By Students At Cal Tech In 1937, '38 And '39. And Later These People Put Together These Jet Propulsion Labs In Pasadena And Wound Up Sending Aircraft And Spacecraft To The Moon. So It All Began Very Primitively With Love.
Moon
People
Together
Every Story I've Written Was Written Because I Had To Write It. Writing Stories Is Like Breathing For Me; It Is My Life.
Writing
Breathing
Stories
Let The World Burn Through You. Throw The Prism Light, White Hot, On Paper.
Writing
Light
White
I Have Something To Fight For And Live For; That Makes Me A Better Killer. I've Got What Amounts To A Religion , Now .
Fighting
Killers
Martian Chronicles
We've Let Too Much Time Go By. We've Been Busy With War Instead Of Being Busy With Peace. And That's What Space Travel Is All About. It's All About Peace And Exploration And Wonder And Beauty.
War
Space
Too Much
When You're Older You Want To Learn From Other People.
People
Want
Do Your Own Bit Of Saving, And If You Drown, At Least Die Knowing You Were Headed For Shore.
Knowing
Saving
Shore
I Decided That Was The Greatest Idea I Had Ever Heard. I Started Writing Every Day. I Never Stopped.
Writing
Ideas
Heard
Good To Evil Seems Evil
Evil
Seems
We Can't Live Alone In Any Society. But The Best Way To Help A Society Or Group, Is To Be The Best Individual In It That We Can Be.
Way
Groups
Helping
Writing Is Like Sex. You Have To Save Your Love For The Love Object. If You Go Around Spouting About Your Idea, There'll Be No "charge" Left. You Can't Father Children That Way.
Sex
Children
Father
There's No Use Going To School Unless Your Final Destination Is The Library.
School
Library
Use
[he] Was Always Here To Offer Cups Of Good Clear Walden Pond, Or Shout Down The Deep Well Of Shakespeare And Listen, With Satisfaction, For Echoes. Here The Lion And The Hartebeest Lay Together, Here The Jackass Became A Unicorn.
Echoes
Together
Ponds
But No Man's A Hero To Himself.
Hero
Men
An Athlete May Run Ten Thousand Miles In Order To Prepare For One Hundred Yards. Quantity Gives Experience.
Running
Athlete
Order
The Purpose Of Fiction Is Not To Nail You To The Ground As Facts Do, But To Take You To The Edge Of The Cliff And Kick You Off So You Build Your Wings On The Way Down.
Wings
Fiction
Way
Not To Write, For Many Of Us, Is To Die. We Must Take Ares Each And Every Day, Perhaps Knowing That The Battle Cannot Be Entirely Won, But Fight We Must, If Only A Gentle Bout. The Smallest Effort To Win Means, At The End Of Each Day, A Sort Of Victory.
Writing
Mean
Fighting
I Write All Of My Novels And Stories, As You Have Seen, In A Great Surge Of Delightful Passion. Only Recently, Glancing At The Novel, I Realized That Montag Is Named After A Paper Manufacturing Company. And Faber, Of Course, Is A Maker Of Pencils! What A Sly Thing My Subconscious Was, To Name Them Thus. And Not Tell Me!
Passion
Writing
Names
Out In The World Not Much Happened. But Here In The Special Night, A Land Bricked With Paper And Leather Anything Might Happen, Always Did.
Night
Land
Special
Books Are Flesh-and-blood Ideas And Cry Out, Silently, When Put To The Torch.
Book
Blood
Ideas
Comic Strips Introduced Me To Metaphors. They Are Pure Metaphor, So You Learn How To Tell A Story With Symbols, Which Is A Very Valuable Thing To Learn. And I Learned That From Motion Pictures, Too, And From Poetry. Poetry Is Mainly Metaphor. If It Doesn't Have A Metaphor, It Doesn't Work.
Stories
Metaphor
Comic
If You Love People You Criticize Them, And If You Don't Love Them You Don't Criticize Them, You Let Them Go To Hell, Don't You? To Help Any Kind Of Friendship, Your Marriage, Your Children, You Criticize Because You Love.
Children
People
Helping
A Stranger Is Shot In The Street, You Hardly Move To Help. But If, Half An Hour Before, You Spent Just Ten Minutes With The Fellow And Knew A Little About Him And His Family, You Might Just Jump In Front Of His Killer And Try To Stop It. Really Knowing Is Good. Not Knowing, Or Refusing To Know Is Bad, Or Amoral, At Least. You Can’t Act If You Don’t Know.
Moving
Knowing
Trying
When I Was A Young Man, I Didn't Think About Having A Family. My Wife And I Were Too Poor To Have Babies. Then All Of A Sudden, One Came Along And Scared The Hell Out Of Us Because We Had No Money. Once The Baby Arrives, You Make Do Somehow. You Fall In Love With The Baby And Life Adjusts Itself. You Find You Don't Need As Much Money As You Thought. When That Happens, You Can Ask The Questions That Should Have Come Before The Baby.
Baby
Falling In Love
Parenting
Monday Burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, Burn 'em To Ashes, Then Burn The Ashes. That's Our Official Slogan.
Friday
Monday
Ashes
I Feel I'm Doing What I Should've Done A Lifetime Ago. For A Little While I'm Not Afraid. Maybe It's Because I'm Doing The Right Thing At Last. Maybe It's Because I've Done A Rash Thing And Don't Want To Look The Coward To You.
Coward
Looks
Done
Any Man Who Can Take A Tv Wall Apart And Put It Back Together Again, And Most Men Can Nowadays, Is Happier Than Any Man Who Tries To Slide-rule, Measure, And Equate The Universe, Which Just Won't Be Measured Or Equated Without Making Man Feel Bestial And Lonely.
Lonely
Wall
Men
Nobody Listens Anymore. I Can't Talk To The Walls Because They're Yelling At Me, I Can't Talk To My Wife; She Listens To The Walls. I Just Want Someone To Hear What I Have To Say. And Maybe If I Talk Long Enough It'll Make Sense. And I Want You To Teach Me To Understand What I Read.
Wall
Yelling
Long
All Of The Good, Weird Stories I’ve Written Are Based On Things I’ve Dredged Out Of My Subconscious. That’s The Real Stuff. Everything Else Is Fake.
Real
Fake
Stories
Suddenly The Day Was Gone, Night Came Out From Under Each Tree And Spread.
Night
Tree
Gone
Do Three Things Each Night Before You Go To Bed: Read A Poem, Read A Short Story, Read An Essay.
Night
Bed
Three
Tell Us Again, For We Forget, That Work Done Without Love Is Stillborn, Mindless, And Lost In The Very Hour Of Its Deliverance.
Teaching
Learning
Love Is
There Is Only One Type Of Story In The World-your Story.
Stories
World
Type
A Single Face Turned Upward Toward All Time One Flesh, One Ecstasy, One Peace.
Time
Flesh
Faces
You Can’t Learn To Write In College. It’s A Very Bad Place For Writers Because The Teachers Always Think They Know More Than You Do-and They Don’t. They Have Prejudices.
Teacher
Writing
College
I Love You And I Forgive You. I Am Like You And You Are Like Me. I Love All People. I Love The World. I Love Creating. Everything In Our Life Should Be Based On Love.
Forgiveness
Love You
Creating
You Must Never Name The Goal. You Must Never Tell Us The Target You're Hitting For. You Must Automatically Go Toward It Without Ever Naming It.
Names
Goal
Target
Venice Was And Is Full Of Lost Places Where People Put Up For Sale The Last Worn Bits Of Their Souls, Hoping No One Will Buy.
Venice
People
Soul
Gardening Is The Handiest Excuse For Being A Philosopher. Nobody Guesses, Nobody Accuses, Nobody Knows, But There You Are, Plato In The Peonies, Socrates Force-growing His Own Hemlock. A Man Toting A Sack Of Blood Manure Across His Lawn Is Kin To Atlas Letting The World Spin Easy On His Shoulder.
Plato
Men
Blood
I Am Plato's Republic. Mr. Simmons Is Marcus. I Want You To Meet Jonathan Swift, The Author Of That Evil Political Book, Gulliver's Travels! And This Other Fellow Is Charles Darwin, And-this One Is Schopenhauer, And This One Is Einstein, And This One Here At My Elbow Is Mr. Albert Schweitzer, A Very Kind Philosopher Indeed. Here We All Are, Montag. Aristophanes And Mahatma Gandhi And Gautama Buddha And Confucius And Thomas Love Peacock And Thomas Jefferson And Mr. Lincoln, If You Please. We Are Also Matthew, Mark, Luke, And John.
Plato
Book
Evil
You Knew The Sweetness Of Now, Now, Tonight! Who Cares For Tomorrow, Tomorrow Is Nothing, Yesterday Is Over And Done, Tonight Live, Tonight!
Yesterday
Who Cares
Tonight
Since Everything Is But An Apparition, Having Nothing To Do With Good Or Bad, Acceptance Or Rejection, One May Well Burst Out In Laughter. Longchenpa Let's Stuff Our Eyes With Wonder, Let's Live As If We'd Drop Dead In Ten Seconds. Let's See The World. It's More Fantastic Than Any Dream Made Or Paid For In Factories.
Dream
Rest In Peace
Laughter
I Shall Remain On Mars And Read A Book.
Book
Mars
Time Is So Strange And Life Is Twice As Strange. You Must Promise Me Not To Live To Be Too Old, William. It If Is At All Convenient, Die Before You're Fifty. It My Take A Bit Of Doing. But I Advise This Is Simply Because There Is No Telling When Another Helen Loomis Might Be Born. It Would Be Dreadful, Wouldn't It, If You Lived On To Be Very Very Old And Some Afternoon In 1999 Walked Down Main Street And Saw Me Standing There, Aged Twenty-one, And The Whole Thing Out Of Balance Again?
Promise
Balance
Twenties
The Great Fun In My Life Has Been Getting Up Every Morning And Rushing To The Typewriter Because Some New Idea Has Hit Me.
Morning
Fun
Typewriters
Love What You Do And Do What You Love.
What You Love
My Parents Read The Comics To Me, And I Fell In Love With Comic Strips. I've Collected Them All Of My Life. I Have A Complete Collection Of All The "buck Rogers" Sunday Funnies And Daily Paper Strips, I Have All Of "prince Valiant" Put Away, All Of "tarzan," Which Appeared In The Sunday Funnies In 1932 Right On Up Through High School. So I've Learned A Lot From Reading Comics As A Child.
Children
Reading
School
I'll Tell You," Said Beatty, Smiling At His Cards. "that Made You For A Little While A Drunkard. Read A Few Lines And Off You Go Over The Cliff. Bang, You're Ready To Blow Up The World, Chop Off Heads, Knock Down Women And Children, Destroy Authority. I Know. I've Been Through It All.
Children
Blow
Bangs
Why Is It," He Said, One Time, At The Subway Entrance, "i Feel I've Known You So Many Years?" "because I Like You," She Said, "and I Don't Want Anything From You.
Relationship
I Like You
Years
I Think The Sun Is A Flower, That Blooms For Just One Hour.
Flower
Thinking
Sun
Well, After All, This Is The Age Of The Disposable Tissue. Blow Your Nose On A Person, Wad Them, Flush Them Away, Reach For Another, Blow, Wad, Flush. Everyone Using Everyone Else's Coattails. How Are You Supposed To Root For The Home Team When You Don't Even Have A Program Or Know The Names? For That Matter, What Color Jersey's Are They Reading As They Trot Out To The Feild?
Team
Reading
Home
"oh, Ancient God, Whatever Your Name," Whispered Ahmed. "help This Lost Son Of A Good Father, This Evil Boy Who Meant No Harm But Slept In School, Ran Errands Slowly, Did Not Pray From His Heart, Ignored His Mother, And Did Not Hold His Family In Great Esteem. For All This I Know I Must Suffer. But Here In The Midst Of Silence, At The Desert's Heart, Where Even The Wind Knows Not My Name? Must I Die So Young? Am I To Be Forgotten Without Having Been?"
God
Mother
Father
He Says I'm A Regular Onion! I Keep Him Busy Peeling Away The Layers.
Onions
Layers
Busy
See The World. It's More Fantastic Than Any Dream.
Life
Dream
Rest In Peace
And The Lesson Was This; Sit In The Sun, Head Down, Within A Prickly Vine, In A Flickery Light, Or Open Light, And The World Will Come To You. The Sky Will Come In Its Time, Bringing Rain, And The Earth Will Rise Through You, From Beneath, And Make You Rich And Make You Full.
Rain
Light
Sky
I Did What Most Writers Do At Their Beginnings: Emulated My Elders, Imitated My Peers, Thus Turning Away From Any Possibility Of Discovering Truths Beneath My Skin And Behind My Eye.
Writing
Eye
Skins
And I Saw Then And There You Take A Man Half-bad And A Women Half-bad And Put Their Two Good Halves Together And You Got One Human All Good To Share Between.
Men
Two
Together
A Story Should Be Like A River, Flowing And Never Stopping, Your Readers Passengers On A Boat, Whirling Downstream Through Constantly Refreshing And Changing Scemery.
Rivers
Stopping
Stories
...i Mean, You Don't Just Love People, You Must Love Them With Exclamation Points.
Mean
Exclamation Points
People
Those Who Don't Build Must Burn. It's As Old As History And Juvenile Delinquents.
Juvenile
Delinquents
I've Never Been In Charge Of My Stories, They've Always Been In Charge Of Me. As Each New One Has Called To Me, Ordering Me To Give It Voice And Form And Life, I've Followed The Advice I've Shared With Other Writers Over The Years: Jump Off The Cliff And Build Your Wings On The Way Down.
Years
Wings
Voice
I'm Trying To Teach People Of All Ages To, Number One: How To Criticize, How To Offer Creative Analysis On Top Of That, How To Try To Build Things In A New Direction And How To Compliment People When The Thing Gets Done.
Numbers
People
Creative
Treasure This Day And Treasure Yourself, Truly, Neither Will Ever Happen Again.
Treasure
Happens
This Day
I’ve Often Been Accused Of Being Too Emotional And Sentimental, But I Believe In Honest Sentiment, And The Need To Purge Ourselves At Certain Times, Which Is Ancient. Men Would Live At Least Five Or Six More Years And Not Have Ulcers If They Could Cry Better.
Believe
Men
Emotional
Not To Write, For Many Of Us, Is To Die.
Writing
Dies
Here At This Far Lost End Of The Continent, Where The Trail Wagons Had Stopped And The People With Them.
Venice
People
Wagons
Like Every Beginner, I Have Thought You Could Beat, Pummel And Thrash An Idea Into Existence. Under Such Treatment, Of Course, Any Decent Idea Folds Up Its Paws, Turns On Its Back, Fixes Its Eyes On Eternity, And Dies.
Eye
Ideas
Beginners
Kerosene," He Said, Because The Silence Had Lengthened, "is Nothing But Perfume To Me.
Silence
Perfume
Said
We Need Not To Be Let Alone. We Need To Be Really Bothered Once In A While.
Needs
Bothered
Not Bothered
Do You Ever Wonder If--well, If There Are People Living On The Third Planet?' 'the Third Planet Is Incapable Of Supporting Life,' Stated The Husband Patiently. 'our Scientists Have Said There's Far Too Much Oxygen In Their Atmosphere.
Husband
Oxygen
People
I Was One Of Them: The Strange Ones. The Funny People. The Odd Tribes Of Autograph Collectors And Photographers. The Ones Who Waited Through Long Days And Nights, Who Used Other People's Dreams For Their Lives.
Dream
Night
Long
It's Rare You Get An Idea From A Dream. I Can't Really Recall A Story That Ever Worked Out That Way. I Think In 35 Years Of Writing, That I've Ever Had A Dream That Held Up. They're Much Too Dislocated
Dream
Writing
Thinking
How Men Envy And Often Hate These Warm Clocks, These Wives, Who Know They Will Live Forever. So What Do We Do? We Men Turn Terribly Mean, Because We Can't Hold To The World Or Ourselves Or Anything. We Are Blind To Continuity, All Breaks Down, Falls, Melts, Stops, Rots, Or Runs Away. So, Since We Cannot Shape Time, Where Does That Leave Men? Sleepless. Staring.
Running
Hate
Fall
Now That I Have You Thoroughly Confused, Let Me Pause To Hear Your Own Dismayed Cry.
Confused
Cry
Let Me
Love Is The Answer To Everything. It's The Only Reason To Do Anything. If You Don't Write Stories You Love, You'll Never Make It. If You Don't Write Stories That Other People Love, You'll Never Make It.
Love
Writing
People
For John Was Running, And This Was Terrible. Because If You Ran, Time Ran. You Yelled And Screamed And Raced And Rolled And Tumbled And All Of A Sudden The Sun Was Gone And The Whistle Was Blowing And You Were On Your Long Way Home To Supper. When You Weren't Looking, The Sun Got Around Behind You! The Only Way To Keep Things Slow Was To Watch Everything And Do Nothing! You Could Stretch A Day To Three Days, Sure, Just By Watching!
Running
Home
Long
I’m Really Alive! He Thought. I Never Knew It Before, Or If I Did I Don’t Remember!
Alive
Remember
Ifs
Every Day Is Christmas Day To A Dog.
Dog
Christmas Day
If You Enjoy Living, It Is Not Difficult To Keep The Sense Of Wonder.
Philosophy
Positive Thinking
Medicine
Chock Them So ... Full Of "facts" They Feel Stuffed, But Absolutely "brilliant" With Information. Then They'll Feel They're Thinking, They'll Get A Sense Of Motion Without Moving.
Moving
Thinking
Information
I Define Science Fiction As The Art Of The Possible. Fantasy Is The Art Of The Impossible.
Art
Fiction
Impossible
Please, Please, Help Me Grow To Be Like Them, The Ones'll Soon Be Here, Who Never Grow Old, Can't Die, That's What They Say, Can't Die, No Matter What, Or Maybe They Died A Long Time Ago But Cecy Calls, And Mother And Father Call, And Grandmere Who Only Whispers, And Now They're Coming And I'm Nothing, Not Like Them Who Pass Through Walls And Live In Trees Or Live Underneath Until Seventeen-year Rains Flood Them Up And Out, And The Ones Who Run In Packs, Let Me Be The One! If They Live Forever, Why Not Me?
Mother
Running
Wall
Ours Is A Culture And A Time Immensely Rich In Trash As It Is In Treasures.
Writing
Culture
Treasure
Recreate The World In Your Own Image And Make It Better For Your Having Been Here.
World
To Sum It All Up, If You Want To Write, If You Want To Create, You Must Be The Most Sublime Fool That God Ever Turned Out And Sent Rambling. You Must Write Every Single Day Of Your Life. You Must Write Dreadful Dumb Books And Glorious Books, And Let Them Wrestle In Beautiful Fights Inside Your Head, Vulgar One Moment, Brilliant The Next.
Beautiful
Book
Writing
But With The Library, It's Like Catnip, I Suppose: You Begin To Run In Circles Because There's So Much To Look At And Read.
Running
Circles
Library
Once You Let Yourself Begin To Be Grown-up, You Face A World Full Of Problems You Can't Solve. The Politicians And Specialists - Adults, All - Have A Hard Enough Time Trying To Figure Out Where To Look. It Doesn't Have To Be That Way. The Greatest Solutions In Society Are Reached By Corporate Thinking, Ruled By A Motive To Either Make A Profit Or Go Out Of Business.
Thinking
Trying
Way
Life Should Be Touched, Not Strangled.
Life
Letting Go
Should
They Stood There, King Of The Hill, Top Of The Heap, Ruler Of All They Surveyed, Unimpeachable Monarchs And Presidents, Trying To Understand What It Meant To Own A World And How Big A World Really Was.
Leadership
Kings
Trying
We Have Everything We Need To Be Happy But We Aren't Happy. Something Is Missing... It Is Not Books You Need, It's Some Of The Things That Are In Books. The Magic Is Only In What Books Say, How They Stitched The Patches Of The Universe Together Into One Garment For Us.
Book
Missing
Magic
I Don't Like To Go To Theaters, Because I Don't Like The Way Most People Behave In Theaters.
People
Way
Theater
Man Has Always Been Half-monster, Half-dreamer.
Writing
Men
Dreamer
There Are Too Many Of Us, He Thought. There Are Billions Of Us And That's Too Many. Nobody Knows Anyone. Strangers Come And Violate You. Strangers Come And Cut Your Heart Out. Strangers Come And Take Your Blood. Good God, Who Were Those Men? I Never Saw Them Before In My Life!
Heart
Cutting
Men
I Got A Statistic For You Right Now. Grab Your Pencil, Doug. There Are Five Billion Trees In The World. I Looked It Up. Under Every Tree Is A Shadow, Right? So, Then, What Makes Night? I'll Tell You: Shadows Crawling Out From Under Five Billion Trees! Think Of It! Shadows Running Around In The Air, Muddying The Waters You Might Say. If Only We Could Figure A Way To Keep Those Darn Five Billion Shadows Under Those Trees, We Could Stay Up Half The Night, Doug, Because There'd Be No Night!
Running
Night
Thinking
If I Was Ever A Rare Fine Summer Person, That's Long Ago. Most Of Us Are Half-and-half. The August Noon In Us Works To Stave Off The November Chills. We Survive By What Little Fourth Of July Wits We've Stashed Away. But There Are Times When We're All Autumn People.
Summer
Autumn
July
I Want Your Loves To Be Multiple. I Don't Want You To Be A Snob About Anything. Anything You Love, You Do It.
Love You
Writing
Want
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.
Life
Stars
Giving
I've Always Known That The Quality Of Love Was The Mind, Even Though The Body Sometimes Refuses This Knowledge. The Body Lives For Itself. It Lives Only To Feed And Wait For The Night. It's Essentially Nocturnal. But What Of The Mind Which Is Born Of The Sun, William, And Must Spend Thousands Of Hours Of A Lifetime Awake And Aware? Can You Balance Off The Body, That Pitiful, Selfish Thing Of Night Against A Whole Lifetime Of Sun And Intellect? I Don't Know.
Selfish
Night
Waiting
He Felt His Smile Slide Away, Melt, Fold Over And Down On Itself Like A Tallow Skin, Like The Stuff Of A Fantastic Candle Burning Too Long And Now Collapsing And Now Blown Out.
Long
Skins
Burning
Hollywood Was A Good Influence Because I Was Madly In Love With Films, And The Films Had A Direct Influence On Me.
Hollywood
Influence
Film
Evil Has Only The Power We Give It.
Evil
Giving
Remember, With Writing, What You’re Looking For Is Just One Person To Come Up And Tell You, 'i Love You For What You Do.'
Love You
Writing
Remember
There Is More Than One Way To Burn A Book. And The World Is Full Of People Running About With Lit Matches.
Running
Book
People
... Bums On The Outside, Libraries Inside.
Library
There Are A Lot Of Wonderful Women Writers Who Would Be Good Influences On Writers. You've Got To Spread Yourself Out And Educate Yourself With All Kinds Of Stories.
Would Be
Stories
Kind
Remember: Plot Is No More Than Footprints Left In The Snow After Your Characters Have Run By On Their Way To Incredible Destinations. Plot Is Observed After The Fact Rather Than Before. It Cannot Precede Action. It Is The Chart That Remains When An Action Is Through. That Is All Plot Ever Should Be. It Is Human Desire Let Run, Running, And Reaching A Goal. It Cannot Be Mechanical. It Can Only Be Dynamic.
Running
Character
Snow
The World, Like A Great Iris Of An Even More Gigantic Eye, Which Has Also Just Opened And Stretched Out To Encompass Everything, Stared Back At Him.
Eye
Irises
World
They Whispered To Caesar That He Was Mortal, Then Sold Daggers At Half-price In The Grand March Sale.
Half
Daggers
March
I Don't Think About What I Do. I Do It. That's Buddhism. I Jump Off The Cliff And Build My Wings On The Way Down.
Buddhism
Thinking
Wings
Digression Is The Soul Of Wit.
Soul
Wit
Now Let's Take Up The Minorities In Our Civilisation, Shall We? Bigger The Population, The More Minorities. Don't Step On The Toes Of The Dog-lovers, The Cat-lovers, Doctors, Lawyers, Merchants, Chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, Second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, People From Oregon Or Mexico. The People In This Book, This Play, This Tv Serial Are Not Meant To Represent Any Actual Painters, Cartographers, Mechanics Anywhere. The Bigger Your Market, Montag, The Less You Handle Controversy, Remember That!
Dog
Book
Cat
Half The Fun Of The Travel Is The Esthetic Of Lostness.
Inspirational
Travel
Fun
Don’t Think. Thinking Is The Enemy Of Creativity.
Creativity
Thinking
Creative
It Was A Pleasure To Burn.
Chaos
Pleasure
The Faster You Blurt, The More Swiftly You Write, The More Honest You Are.
Writing
Honest
Faster
I Know You've Heard It A Thousand Times Before. But It's True - Hard Work Pays Off. If You Want To Be Good, You Have To Practice, Practice, Practice. If You Don't Love Something, Then Don't Do It.
Teamwork
Believe
Hard Work
Memory Is An Illusion, Nothing More. It Is A Fire That Needs Constant Tending.
Memories
Fire
Needs
A Book Has Got Smell. A New Book Smells Great. An Old Book Smells Even Better. An Old Book Smells Like Ancient Egypt.
Book
Egypt
Smell
If You Did Not Write Every Day, The Poisons Would Accumulate And You Would Begin To Die, Or Act Crazy Or Both-you Must Stay Drunk On Writing So Reality Cannot Destroy You.
Crazy
Writing
Reality
Ask No Guarantees, Ask For No Security, There Never Was Such An Animal. And If There Was It Would Be Related To The Great Sloth Which Hangs Upside Down In A Tree All Day Every Day, Sleeping Its Life Away.
Sleep
Animal
Tree
I Take This Continent With Me Into The Grave.
Graves
Continents
When You Go Home Tonight, Make A List Of The People Who Are Impediments, Who Don't Believe In You, And Call Them Up And Tell Them, 'get The Hell Out Of My Life.' You Don't Need Them. Writing Is Tough Enough Without Having People Around You Who Contribute To A Writer's Insecurity.
Believe
Home
Writing
...passing Swiftly On Toward Further Darknesses, But Moving Also Toward A New Sun.
Moving
Darkness
Sun
The Internet Is A Big Distraction. It's Distracting, It's Meaningless; It's Not Real. It's In The Air Somewhere.
Real
Air
Internet
The Zipper Displaces The Button And A Man Lacks Just That Much Time To Think While Dressing At Dawn, A Philosophical Hour, And Thus A Melancholy Hour.
Philosophical
Thinking
Men
I Have My Favorite Cat, Who Is My Paperweight, On My Desk While I Am Writing.
Writing
Cat
My Favorite
At The Top Of Your Lungs, Shout And Listen To The Echoes. You Must Live Life At The Top Of Your Voice!
Live Life
Echoes
Voice
We Earth Men Have A Talent For Ruining Big, Beautiful Things.
Beautiful
Men
Earth
I Wake Up In The Morning And I Lie In Bed, And It's The Time I Call "the Theater Of Morning." All These Thoughts Run Around In My Head, Between My Ears When I'm Waking Up. It's Not A Dream State, But It's Not Completely Awake Either. So All These Metaphors Run Around And Then I Pick One And I Get Out Of Bed And I Do It. I'm Very Lucky.
Running
Dream
Morning
I've Been Writing Every Day Of My Life For 65 Years.
Writing
Years
Writing Every Day
And The Odd Think In Dad's Voice Was The Sound Truth Makes Being Said.
Dad
Thinking
Voice
One Year Halloween Came On October 24, Three Hours After Midnight. At That Time, James Nightshade Of 97 Oak Street Was Thirteen Years, Eleven Months, Twenty-three Days Old. Next Door, William Halloway Was Thirteen Years, Eleven Months, And Twenty-four Days Old. Both Touched Toward Fourteen; It Almost Trembled In Their Hands. And That Was The October Week When They Grew Up Overnight, And Were Never So Young Any More.
Halloween
Doors
Hands
When Rivers Flooded, When Fire Fell From The Sky, What A Fine Place The Library Was, The Many Rooms, The Books. With Luck, No One Found You. How Could They!--when You Were Off To Tanganyika In '98, Cairo In 1812, Florence In 1492!?
Book
Fire
Sky
Do You Ever Read Any Of The Books You Burn?" He Laughed. "that's Against The Law!" "oh. Of Course.
Book
Law
Laughed
Hold Summer In Your Hand, Pour Summer In A Glass, A Tiny Glass Of Course, The Smallest Tingling Sip, For Children; Change The Season In Your Veins By Raising Glass To Lip And Tilting Summer In.
Summer
Children
Glasses
My Business Is To Prevent The Future.
If You're Reluctant To Weep, You Won't Live A Full And Complete Life.
Complete Life
Reluctant
Ifs
There Is More Than One Way To Burn A Book. And The World Is Full Of People Running About With Lit Matches. Every Minority, Be It Baptist/unitarian, Irish/italian/octogenarian/zen Buddhist, Zionist/seventh-day Adventist, Women's Lib/republican, Mattachine/foursquaregospel Feels It Has The Will, The Right, The Duty To Douse The Kerosene, Light The Fuse. Every Dimwit Editor Who Sees Himself As The Source Of All Dreary Blanc-mange Plain Porridge Unleavened Literature, Licks His Guillotine And Eyes The Neck Of Any Author Who Dares To Speak Above A Whisper Or Write Above A Nursery Rhyme.
Running
Buddhist
Book
That's The Good Part Of Dying; When You've Nothing To Lose, You Run Any Risk You Want.
Running
Risk
Dying
What Can We Writers Learn From Lizards, Lift From Birds? In Quickness Is Truth. The Faster You Blurt, The More Swiftly You Write, The More Honest You Are. In Hesitation Is Thought. In Delay Comes The Effort For A Style, Instead Of Leaping Upon Truth Which Is The Only Style Worth Deadfalling Or Tiger-trapping.
Writing
Effort
Bird
I Never Went To College, So I Went To The Library.
College
Library
If Someone Tells You To Do Something For Money, Tell Them To Go To Hell.
Hell
Go To Hell
Ifs
I Love Writing, It's The Center Of My Life. If You Don't Love What You Do, You'd Better Find Something Else To Love. Otherwise, You Don't Have A Reason For Living.
Writing
Reason
Ifs
I Don't Like Realism. We Already Know The Real Facts About Li[fe], Most Of The Basic Facts. I'm Not Interested In Repeating What We Already Know. We Know About Sex, About Violence, About Murder, About War. All These Things, By The Time We're 18, We're Up To Here. From There On We Need Interpreters. We Need Poets. We Need Philosophers. We Need Theologians, Who Take The Same Basic Facts And Work With Them And Help Us Make Do With Those Facts. Facts Alone Are Not Enough. It's Interpretation.
Sex
Real
War
I Define Science Fiction As The Art Of The Possible. Fantasy Is The Art Of The Impossible. Science Fiction, Again, Is The History Of Ideas, And They're Always Ideas That Work Themselves Out And Become Real And Happen In The World. And Fantasy Comes Along And Says, 'we're Going To Break All The Laws Of Physics.' ... Most People Don't Realize It, But The Series Of Films Which Have Made More Money Than Any Other Series Of Films In The History Of The Universe Is The James Bond Series. They're All Science Fiction, Too - Romantic, Adventurous, Frivolous, Fantastic Science Fiction!
Art
Real
Law
Collecting Facts Is Important. Knowledge Is Important. But If You Don't Have An Imagination To Use The Knowledge, Civilization Is Nowhere.
Civilization
Imagination
Important
Oh, What Strange Wonderful Clocks Women Are. They Nest In Time. They Make The Flesh That Holds Fast And Binds Eternity. They Live Inside The Gift, Know Power, Accept, And Need Not Mention It. Why Speak Of Time When You Are Time, And Shape The Universal Moments, As They Pass, Into Warmth And Action?
Needs
Shapes
Nests
It Is A Lie To Write In Such Way As To Be Rewarded By Fame Offered You By Some Snobbish Quasi-literary Groups In The Intellectual Gazettes.
Lying
Writing
Intellectual
The Reason I Shift Gears Constantly, Why I'm Doing An Opera, Why I've Done Essays, Why I've Written Poetry For Years That Nobody Wanted, Why I Do Short Stories And Novels And Screenplays... Is So I Will Have New Ways Of Failing. This Means Becoming A Student Again.
Mean
Years
Gears
It's Lack That Gives Us Inspiration. It's Not Fullness.
Inspiration
Giving
Fullness
We're Going To Become The Martians When We Land There. When We Explore And Build Communities, We Become The Martians. That's A Wonderful Destiny For All Of Us.
Destiny
Land
Community
How Long Has It Been Since You Wrote A Story Where Your Real Love Or Your Real Hatred Somehow Got Onto The Paper? When Was The Last Time You Dared Release A Cherished Prejudice So It Slammed The Page Like A Lightning Bolt?
Real
Long
Hatred
The Terrible Tyranny Of The Majority.
Majority
Tyranny Of The Majority
Terrible
Self-consciousness Is The Enemy Of All Art, Be It Acting, Writing, Painting, Or Living Itself, Which Is The Greatest Art Of All.
Art
Writing
Self
Most Of My Stories Are Ideas In Action. In Other Words, I Get A Concept, And I Let It Run Away. I Find A Character To Act Out The Idea. And Then The Story Takes Care Of Itself.
Running
Character
Ideas
They Are So Confident That They Will Run On Forever. But They Won't Run On. They Don't Know That This Is All One Huge Big Blazing Meteor That Makes A Pretty Fire In Space, But That Some Day It'll Have To Hit.
Running
Space
Fire
Ideas Excite Me, And As Soon As I Get Excited, The Adrenaline Gets Going And The Next Thing I Know I'm Borrowing Energy From The Ideas Themselves.
Ideas
Energy
Next
The Sun Rose Yellow As A Lemon.the Sky Was Round And Blue.the Birds Looped Clear Water Songs In The Air.will And Jim Leaned From Their Windows.nothing Had Changed.except The Look In Jim's Eyes.last Night. . . Said Will. Did Or Didn't It Happen?
Song
Eye
Night
When A Man Talks From His Heart, In His Moment Of Truth, He Speaks Poetry.
Heart
Men
Speak
There Are Certain Kinds Of People Who Write Science Fiction. I Think A Lot Of Us Married Late. A Lot Of Us Are Mama's Boys. I Lived At Home Until I Was 27. But Most Of The Writers I Know In Any Field, Especially Science Fiction, Grew Up Late. They're So Interested In Doing What They Do And In Their Science, They Don't Think About Other Things.
Home
Writing
Thinking
Trending Author
Pierre Corneille
Leslie Caron
Aaron Burr
Carlos Santana
King James I
Jack Irons
Category
Information