The Psychiatrist Wants To Know Why I Go Out And Hike Around In The Forests And Watch The Birds And Collect Butterflies. I'll Show You My Collection Some Day.good.they Want To Know What I Do With My Time. I Tell Them That Sometimes I Just Sit And Think. But I Won't Tell Them What. I've Got Them Running. And Sometimes, I Tell Them, I Like To Put My Head Back, Like This, And Let The Rain Fall In My Mouth. It Tastes Just Like Wine. Have You Ever Tried It?

-Ray Bradbury

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The Psychiatrist Wants To

Ray Bradbury

Topic

Running

Rain

Fall

More From Ray Bradbury

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

When You Grow Up In Science Fiction You Grow Up In Everything! It's The Greatest And Only Field Worth Growing Up In. It's The Total Field.

Growing Up

Fiction

Fields

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

From The Outer Edge Of His Life, Looking Back, There Was Only One Remorse, And That Was Only That He Wished To Go On Living.

Goes On

Edges

Looking Back

If You Dream The Proper Dreams, And Share The Myths With People, They Will Want To Grow Up To Be Like You.

Dream

Growing Up

Writing

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

What Should I Do?" "throw Up In Your Typewriter Every Morning." "yeah." "clean Up Every Noon.

Morning

Typewriters

Noon

Don't They Get Afraid, Then?" "they Have A Religion For That.

Fear

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

You're Afraid Of Making Mistakes. Don't Be. Mistakes Can Be Profited By. Man, When I Was Young I Shoved My Ignorance In People's Faces. They Beat Me With Sticks. By The Time I Was Forty My Blunt Instrument Had Been Honed To A Fine Cutting Point For Me. If You Hide Your Ignorance, No One Will Hit You And You'll Never Learn.

Mistake

Ignorance

Cutting

What Do You Do, Go Around Trying Everything Once?' He Asked. 'sometimes Twice.

Trying Everything

Trying

Sometimes

It's Important To Read A Book, But Also To Hold The Book, To Smell The Book... It's Perfume, It's Incense, It's The Dust Of Egypt.

Book

Egypt

Dust

Beer's Intellectual. What A Shame So Many Idiots Drink It.

Drinking

Beer

Intellectual

Without The Library, You Have No Civilization.

Civilization

Library

Have You Ever Watched The Jet Cars Race On The Boulevard?...i Sometimes Think Drivers Don’t Know What Grass Is, Or Flowers, Because They Never See Them Slowly...if You Showed A Driver A Green Blur, Oh Yes! He'd Say, That’s Grass! A Pink Blur! That’s A Rose Garden! White Blurs Are Houses. Brown Blurs Are Cows.

Flower

Garden

Thinking

When I Was A Young Writer If You Went To A Party And Told Somebody You Were A Science-fiction Writer You Would Be Insulted. They Would Call You Flash Gordon All Evening, Or Buck Rogers.

Party

Evening

Young Writers

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

The One Sure Way I Can Dishonor Myself Is By Worrying About My Reputation.

Worry

Way

Reputation

Libraries Are Absolutely At The Center Of My Life. Since I Couldn't Afford To Go To College, I Attended The Library Three Or Four Days A Week From The Age Of Eighteen On, And Graduated From The Library When I Was Twenty-eight.

College

Eight

Age

...passing Swiftly On Toward Further Darknesses, But Moving Also Toward A New Sun.

Moving

Darkness

Sun

It Takes Writing A Billion Bad Words Before You Get To The Good Ones.

Writing

Billions

Bad Word

Let The World Burn Through You. Throw The Prism Light, White Hot, On Paper.

Writing

Light

White

A Witch Is Born Out Of The True Hungers Of Her Time,” She Said. “i Was Born Out Of New York. The Things That Are Most Wrong Here Summoned Me. ("drink Entire: Against The Madness Of Crowds")

New York

Crowds

Madness

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

Love. Fall In Love And Stay In Love. Write Only What You Love, And Love What You Write. The Key Word Is Love. You Have To Get Up In The Morning And Write Something You Love, Something To Live For.

Love

Inspirational

Good Morning

I'll Be Damned If Death Wears My Sadness For Glad Rags.

Sadness

Rags

Glad

But Most Of All, I Like To Watch People. Sometimes I Ride The Subway All Day And Look At Them And Listen To Them. I Just Want To Figure Out Who They Are And What They Want And Where They Are Going. Sometimes I Even Go To Fun Parks And Ride In The Jet Cars When They Race On The Edge Of Town At Midnight And The Police Don't Care As Long As They're Insured. As Long As Everyone Has Ten Thousand Insurance Everyone's Happy. Sometimes I Sneak Around And Listen In Subways. Or I Listen At Soda Fountains, And Do You Know What? People Don't Talk About Anything.

Fun

Race

Long

I Have Something To Fight For And Live For; That Makes Me A Better Killer. I've Got What Amounts To A Religion Now. It's Learning How To Breathe All Over Again. And How To Lie In The Sun Getting A Tan, Letting The Sun Work Into You. And How To Hear Music And How To Read A Book. What Does Your Civilization Offer?

Lying

Book

Fighting

There Where Hundreds Of Graves. There Where Hundreds Of Women. There Were Hundreds Of Daughters. There Were Hundreds Of Sons. And Hundreds Upon Hundreds Upon Thousands Of Candles. The Whole Graveyard Was One Swarm Of Candleshine As If A Population Of Fireflies Had Heard Of A Grand Conglomeration And Had Flown Here To Settle In And Flame Upon The Stones And Light The Brown Faces And The Dark Eyes And The Black Hair.

Daughter

Eye

Son

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

That's Life For You," Said Macdunn. "someone Always Waiting For Someone Who Never Comes Home. Always Someone Loving Some Thing More Than That Thing Loves Them. And After A While You Want To Destroy Whatever That Thing Is, So It Can't Hurt You No More.

Hurt

Home

Waiting

Once The Automobile Appeared You Could Have Predicted That It Would Destroy As Many People As It Did.

People

Automobile

I Went To Bed And Woke In The Middle Of The Night Thinking I Heard Someone Cry, Thinking I Myself Was Weeping, And I Felt My Face And It Was Dry. Then I Looked At The Window And Thought: Why, Yes, It's Just The Rain, The Rain, Always The Rain, And Turned Over, Sadder Still, And Fumbled About For My Dripping Sleep And Tried To Slip It Back On.

Rain

Sleep

Night

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

... Bums On The Outside, Libraries Inside.

Library

If You're Living In Your Time, You Cannot Help But To Write About The Things That Are Important.

Writing

Important

Helping

If You Don't Want A Man Unhappy Politically, Don't Give Him Two Sides To A Question To Worry Him; Give Him One. Better Yet, Give Him None.

Men

Two Sides

Giving

You Take The Books, You Lie There In The Pools Of Light And You Drink Life. That Is How Intensely I Have Loved Libraries.

Lying

Book

Light

See The World. It's More Fantastic Than Any Dream.

Life

Dream

Rest In Peace

The Important Thing Of Any Time You Live In Is To Be In Love Yourself. You Float Above Your Time Then. It's What You Want That Counts, Not What Your Time Wants.

Love You

Important

Want

Forget Them. Burn All, Burn Everything. Fire Is Bright And Fire Is Clean.

Fire

Forget

Clean

Dandelion Wine. The Words Were Summer On The Tongue. The Wine Was Summer Caught And Stoppered...sealed Away For Opening On A January Day With Snow Falling Fast And The Sun Unseen For Weeks.

Summer

Fall

Wine

Ideas And Philosophies Change Just As Machines Do. Religions Changed Because Of The Birth Control Pill. Politics Changes Because Of The Hydrogen Bomb. All Because Of Science Fictional Inventions.

Philosophy

Hydrogen Bomb

Ideas

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

When The Wind Is Right, A Faint Odor Of Kerosene Is Exhaled From Senator Mccarthy.

War

Wind

Odor

In That Film Love Story, There's A Line, "love Means Never Having To Say You're Sorry." That's The Dumbest Thing I Ever Heard. Love Means Saying You're Sorry Every Day For Some Little Thing Or Other.

Love

Sorry

Mean

Your Intuition Knows What To Write, So Get Out Of The Way.

Writing

Intuition

Way

This Afternoon, Burn Down The House. Tomorrow, Pour Critical Water Upon The Simmering Coals. Time Enough To Think And Cut And Rewrite Tomorrow. But Today-explode-f Ly-apart-disint Egrate! The Other Six Or Seven Drafts Are Going To Be Pure Torture. So Why Not Enjoy The First Draft, In The Hope That Your Joy Will Seek And Find Others In The World Who, By Reading Your Story, Will Catch Fire, Too?

Reading

Writing

Cutting

If You Hide Your Ignorance, No One Will Hit You And You'll Never Learn.

Ignorance

Ifs

Acting Without Knowing Takes You Right Off The Cliff.

Knowing

Acting

Cliffs

Beware The Autumn People

Autumn

People

Savory...that's A Swell Word. And Basil And Betel. Capsicum. Curry. All Great. But Relish, Now, Relish With A Capital R. No Argument, That' The Best.

Argument

Basil

Curry

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

When Your Dawn Theater Sounds To Clear Your Sinuses: Don't Delay. Jump. Those Voices May Be Gone Before You Hit The Shower To Align Your Wits. Speed Is Everything. The 90-mph Dash To Your Machine Is A Sure Cure For Life Rampant And Death Most Real. Make Haste To Live. Oh, God, Yes. Live. And Write. With Great Haste.

Real

Writing

Mph

You Let The Story Cool Off And Then, Instead Of Rewriting It, You Relive It.

Stories

Rewriting

You Don't Have To Burn Books To Destroy A Culture. Just Get People To Stop Reading Them.

Inspirational

Life

Struggle

I Don't Believe In Government. I Hate Politics. I'm Against It. And I Hope That Sometime This Fall, We Can Destroy Part Of Our Government, And Next Year Destroy Even More Of It. The Less Government, The Happier I Will Be.

Hate

Believe

Fall

Where Would You Like To Go, What Would You Really Like To Do With Your Life? See Istanbul, Port Said, Nairobi, Budapest. Write A Book. Smoke Too Many Cigarettes. Fall Off A Cliff But Get Caught In A Tree Halfway Down. Get Shot At A Few Times In A Dark Alley On A Morrocan Midnight. Love A Beautiful Woman.

Beautiful

Book

Fall

The Women In My Life Have All Been Librarians, English Teachers, Or Booksellers. If They Couldn't Speak Pidgin Tolstoy, Articulate Henry James, Or Give Me Directions To Usher And Ox, It Was No Go. I Have Always Longed For Education, And Pillow Talk's The Best.

Teacher

Giving

Speak

When You Write - Explode - Fly Apart - Disintegrate! Then Give Time Enough To Think, Cut, Rework, And Rewrite.

Writing

Cutting

Thinking

Important Thing Is Not The Me That's Lying Here, But The Me That's Sitting On The Edge Of The Bed Looking Back At Me, And The Me That's Downstairs Cooking Supper, Or Out In The Garage Under The Car, Or In The Library Reading. All The New Parts, They Count. I'm Not Really Dying Today. No Person Ever Died That Had A Family.

Death

Lying

Reading

If Blake Said That, Said Father Brian, He Never Lived In Dublin.

Father

Humorous

Dublin

No Use Going To Class Unless You Go To The Library.

Class

Library

Use

Ours Is A Culture And A Time Immensely Rich In Trash As It Is In Treasures.

Writing

Culture

Treasure

Evil Has Only The Power We Give It.

Evil

Giving

You'll Be Found, Your Nickels, Dimes And Indian-heads Fused By Electroplating. Abe Lincolns Melted Into Miss Columbias, Eagles Plucked Raw On The Backs Of Quarters, All Run To Quicksilver In Your Jeans. More! Any Boy Hit By Lightning, Lift His Lid And There On His Eyeball, Pretty As The Lord's Prayer On A Pin, Find The Last Scene The Boy Ever Saw! A Box-brownie Photo, By God, Of That Fire Climbing Down The Sky To Blow You Like A Penny Whistle, Suck Your Soul Back Up Along The Bright Stair!

Running

Prayer

Blow

You Feed Yourself. Make Sure You Have All The Information, Whether It's Aesthetic, Scientific, Mathematical, I Don't Care What It Is. Then You Walk Away From It And Let It Ferment. You Ignore It And Pretend You Don't Care. Next Thing You Know, The Answer Comes.

Answers

Care

Information

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

Edgar Allen Poe Really Started Me When I Was 8. I Fell In Love With Everything Of His.

Edgar Allen

Why All This Insistence On The Senses? Because In Order To Convince Your Reader That He Is There, You Must Assault Each Of His Senses, In Turn, With Color, Sound, Taste, And Texture. If Your Reader Feels The Sun On His Flesh, The Wind Fluttering His Shirt Sleeves, Half Your Fight Is Won. The Most Improbable Tales Can Be Made Believable, If Your Reader, Through His Senses, Feels Certain That He Stands At The Middle Of Events. He Cannot Refuse, Then, To Participate. The Logic Of Events Always Gives Way To The Logic Of The Senses.

Fighting

Order

Color

Do You Ever Read Any Of The Books You Burn?" He Laughed. "that's Against The Law!" "oh. Of Course.

Book

Law

Laughed

There Was Always A Minority Afraid Of Something, And A Great Majority Afraid Of The Dark, Afraid Of The Future, Afraid Of The Past, Afraid Of The Present, Afraid Of Themselves And Shadows Of Themselves

Dark

Past

Shadow

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

You Can't Learn To Write That Way - By Writing Directly For The Screen. Wait Until You're 30. But In The Meantime Write 200 Short Stories. You've Got To Learn How To Write!

Writing

Waiting

Stories

But Souls Can't Be Sold. They Can Only Be Lost And Never Found Again.

Soul

Lost

Found

They Walked Still Farther And The Girl Said, "is It True That Long Ago Firemen Put Fires Out Instead Of Going To Start Them?" No. Houses Have Always Been Fireproof, Take My Word For It." Strange. I Heard Once That A Long Time Ago Houses Used To Burn By Accident And They Needed Firemen To Stop The Flames.

Girl

Fire

Flames

Get The Big Truth First. If You Get The Big Truth, The Small Truths Will Accumulate Around It.

Firsts

Bigs

Ifs

It Was A Pleasure To Burn.

Chaos

Pleasure

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

(in Response To The Question: What Do You Think Of E-books And Amazon’s Kindle?) Those Aren’t Books. You Can’t Hold A Computer In Your Hand Like You Can A Book. A Computer Does Not Smell. There Are Two Perfumes To A Book. If A Book Is New, It Smells Great. If A Book Is Old, It Smells Even Better. It Smells Like Ancient Egypt. A Book Has Got To Smell. You Have To Hold It In Your Hands And Pray To It. You Put It In Your Pocket And You Walk With It. And It Stays With You Forever. But The Computer Doesn’t Do That For You. I’m Sorry.

Sorry

Book

Thinking

Sometimes You Just Have To Jump Out The Window And Grow Wings On The Way Down.

Inspirational

Learning

Jumping

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

Thus Through Half-belief, We Are Often Doomed To Repeat That Very Past We Should Have Learned From.

Past

Should Have

Half

Digression Is The Soul Of Wit. Take The Philosophic Asides Away From Dante, Milton Or Hamlet's Father's Ghost And What Stays Is Dry Bones.

Father

Writing

Dry Bones

The Trouble With A Lot Of People Who Try To Write Is They Intellectualize About It. That Comes After. The Intellect Is Given To Us By God To Test Things Once They’re Done, Not To Worry About Things Ahead Of Time.

Writing

People

Worry

The Television Is 'real'. It Is Immediate, It Has Dimension. It Tells You What To Think And Blasts It In. It Must Be Right. It Seems So Right. It Rushes You On So Quickly To Its Own Conclusions Your Mind Hasn't Time To Protest, 'what Nonsense!'.

Real

Thinking

Mind

We Are All . . . Children Of This Universe. Not Just Earth, Or Mars, Or This System, But The Whole Grand Fireworks. And If We Are Interested In Mars At All, It Is Only Because We Wonder Over Our Past And Worry Terribly About Our Possible Future.

Children

Past

Worry

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

But No Man's A Hero To Himself.

Hero

Men

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

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

We Are The Miracle Of Force And Matter Making Itself Over Into Imagination And Will.

Imagination

Miracle

Matter

The Stars Are Yours, If You Have The Head, The Hands, And The Heart For Them.

Stars

Heart

Hands

There Is No Future For E-books, Because They Are Not Books. E-books Smell Like Burned Fuel.

Book

Smell

Fuel

I Am A Librarian. I Discovered Me In The Library. I Went To Find Me In The Library. Before I Fell In Love With Libraries, I Was Just A Six-year-old Boy. The Library Fueled All Of My Curiosities, From Dinosaurs To Ancient Egypt. When I Graduated From High School In 1938, I Began Going To The Library Three Nights A Week. I Did This Every Week For Almost Ten Years And Finally, In 1947, Around The Time I Got Married, I Figured I Was Done. So I Graduated From The Library When I Was Twenty-seven. I Discovered That The Library Is The Real School.

Real

School

Boys

If You Don't Like What You're Doing, Then Don't Do It.

Writing

Groove

Feudalism

Work. Don't Think. Relax.

Thinking

Relaxation

Relax

You Have To Learn To Take Rejection Not As An Indication Of Personal Failing But As A Wrong Address.

Rejection

Addresses

Failing

If You're Reluctant To Weep, You Won't Live A Full And Complete Life.

Complete Life

Reluctant

Ifs

I'm Inclined To Believe You Need The Psychiatrist.

Believe

Needs

Psychiatrist

A Science Fiction Story Is Just An Attempt To Solve A Problem That Exists In The World, Sometimes A Moral Problem, Sometimes A Physical Or Social Or Theological Problem.

Fiction Stories

World

Moral

If Someone Sends You A Love Letter You've Got To Answer Back.

Answers

Letters

Love Letter

He Stood Breathing, And The More He Breathed The Land In, The More He Was Filled Up With All The Details Of The Land. He Was Not Empty. There Was More Than Enough Here To Fill Him. There Would Always Be More Than Enough.

Nature

Adventure

Filled Up

Sandwich Outdoors Isn’t A Sandwich Anymore. Tastes Different Than Indoors, Notice? Got More Spice. Tastes Like Mint And Pinesap. Does Wonders For The Appetite.

Cute

Doe

Different

Kids Love Me Because I Write Stories That Tell Them About Their Capacity For Evil. I'm One Of The Few Writers Who Lets You Cleanse Yourself That Way.

Writing

Kids

Evil

We Are Living In A Time When Flowers Are Trying To Live On Flowers, Instead Of On Good Rain And Black Loam.

Flower

Rain

Black

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

If You Had Your Way You’d Pass A Law To Abolish All The Little Jobs, The Little Things. But Then You’d Leave Yourselves Nothing To Do Between The Big Jobs And You’d Have A Devil Of A Time Thinking Up Things To Do So You Wouldn’t Go Crazy. Instead Of That, Why Not Let Nature Show You A Few Things? Cutting Grass And Pulling Weeds Can Be A Way Of Life, Son.

Weed

Jobs

Crazy

Don't Ask For Guarantees. And Don't Look To Be Saved In Any One Thing, Person, Machine, Or Library. Do Your Own Bit Of Saving, And If You Drown, At Least Die Knowing You Were Heading For Shore.

Inspirational

Life

Being Single

I Have Two Rules In Life - To Hell With It, Whatever It Is, And Get Your Work Done.

Two

Done

Hell

His Flesh Took Paleness From His Bones.

Flesh

Bones

I Have Four Daughters And Eight Grandchildren. My Soul Lives On In Them. That's Immortality. That's The Only Immortality I Care About.

I Want To Hold Onto This Funny Thing. God, It's Gotten Big On Me. I Don't Know What It Is. I'm So Damned Unhappy, I'm So Mad, And I Don't Know Why. I Feel Like I'm Putting On Weight. I Feel Fat. I Feel Like I'm Saving A Lot Of Things, And I Don't Know What. I Might Even Start Reading Books.

Book

Reading

Funny Things

Good Writers Touch Life Often.

Good Writers

You're Not Like The Others. I've Seen A Few; I Know. When I Talk, You Look At Me. When I Said Something About The Moon, You Looked At The Moon, Last Night. The Others Would Never Do That. The Others Would Walk Off And Leave Me Talking. Or Threaten Me. No One Has Time Any More For Anyone Else. You're One Of The Few Who Put Up With Me. That's Why I Think It's So Strange You're A Fireman, It Just Doesn't Seem Right For You, Somehow.

Moon

Night

Thinking

Facts Are Not Interesting To Me.

Interesting

Facts

I Was Never Young. Whoever I Was Then Is Dead. That's More Of Your Quills. I Don't Want A Hide Full, Thanks. I Have Always Figured That You Die Each Day And And Each Day Is A Is A Box, You See, All Numbered And Neat; But Never Go Back And Lift The Lids, Because You Have Died A Couple Thousand Times In Your Life, And That's A Lot Of Corpses, Each Dead A Different Way, Each With A Worse Expression. Each Of Those Days Is A Different You, Somebody You Don't Know Or Understand Or Want To Understand.

Couple

Expression

Different

That's The Great Secret Of Creativity. You Treat Ideas Like Cats: You Make Them Follow You.

Art

Creativity

Cat

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

When I Graduated From High School I Couldn't Go To College, So I Went To The Library 3 Days A Week For 10 Years.

Reading

Writing

School

A Reason I Became A Writer Was To Escape The Hopelessness And Despair Of The Real World And Enter The World Of Hope I Could Create With My Imagination.

Real

Imagination

Despair

He Lay Far Across The Room From Her, On A Winter Island Separated By An Empty Sea. She Talked To Him For What Seemed A Long While And She Talked About This And She Talked About That And It Was Only Words, Like The Words He Had Heard Once In A Nursery At A Friend's House, A Two-year-old Child Building Word Patters, Like Jargon, Making Pretty Sounds In The Air.

Children

Winter

Islands

That Country Where It Is Always Turning Late In The Year. That Country Where The Hills Are Fog And The Rivers Are Mist; Where Noons Go Quickly, Dusks And Twilights Linger, And Midnights Stay. That Country Composed In The Main Of Cellars, Sub-cellars, Coal-bins, Closets, Attics, And Pantries Faced Away From The Sun. That Country Whose People Are Autumn People, Thinking Only Autumn Thoughts. Whose People Passing At Night On The Empty Walks Sound Like Rain.

Country

Twilight

Rain

Mysteries Abound Where Most We Seek For Answers.

Answers

Mystery

My Gosh, If You’re Going Away, We Got A Million Things To Talk About! All The Things We Would’ve Talked About Next Month, The Month After! Praying Mantises, Zeppelins, Acrobats, Sword Swallowers!

Going Away

Months

Painting Fulfills A Need To Be Non-intellectual. There Are Times When We Have To Get Our Brains Out In Our Fingers.

Intellectual

Brain

Needs

I Have My Favorite Cat, Who Is My Paperweight, On My Desk While I Am Writing.

Writing

Cat

My Favorite

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

Plot Is No More Than Footprints Left In The Snow After Your Characters Have Run By On Their Way To Incredible Destinations.

Running

Character

Snow

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

You've Got To Be Able To Look At Your Thoughts On Paper And Discover What A Fool You Were.

Looks

Paper

Able

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

I Was Only Kicking Down The Christmas Tree To Get The Star On Top.

Stars

Tree

Kicking

It Was A Great Place To Write A Novel About Book Burning, In The Library Basement.

Book

Writing

Library

We Are An Impossibility In An Impossible Universe.

Science

Impossible

Universe

Why Would You Clone People When You Can Go To Bed With Them And Make A Baby? C'mon, It's Stupid.

Funny

Baby

Stupid

The First Thing A Writer Should Be Is - Excited. He Should Be A Thing Of Fevers And Enthusiasms. Without Such Vigor, He Might As Well Be Out Picking Peaches Or Digging Ditches; God Knows It'd Be Better For His Health.

Digging

Vigor

Fever

The Jungle Looked Back At Them With A Vastness, A Breathing Moss-and-leaf Silence, With A Billion Diamond And Emerald Insect Eyes.

Eye

Breathing

Silence

If You Learn Only Methods, You'll Be Tied To Your Methods, But If You Learn Principles You Can Devise Your Own Methods.

Positive

Motivation

Learning

It's Poor Judgment', Said Grandpa 'to Call Anything By A Name. We Don't Know What A Hobgoblin Or A Vampire Or A Troll Is. Could Be Lots Of Things. You Can't Heave Them Into Categories With Labels And Say They'll Act One Way Or Another. That'd Be Silly. They're People. People Who Do Things. Yes, That's The Way To Put It. People Who *do* Things.

Silly

Names

People

Most Of My Short Stories Are Fantasy.

Stories

Fantasy

Short Story

I Don't Talk Things, Sir. I Talk The Meaning Of Things.

Farenheit 451

Quantity Produces Quality. If You Only Write A Few Things, You're Doomed.

Writing

Quality

Produce

The Terrible Tyranny Of The Majority.

Majority

Tyranny Of The Majority

Terrible

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

Do What You Love, Don't Do Anything Else.

What You Love

...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

I Like To Smell Things And Look At Things, And Sometimes Stay Up All Night, Walking, And Watch The Sun Rise.

Night

Smell

Watches

Science-fiction Balances You On The Cliff. Fantasy Shoves You Off.

Balance

Fiction

Cliffs

I Was Not Predicting The Future, I Was Trying To Prevent It.

Trying

Predicting The Future

Predicting

Every Day Is Christmas Day To A Dog.

Dog

Christmas Day

The Autumn Leaves Blew Over The Moonlit Pavement In Such A Way As To Make The Girl Who Was Moving There Seem Fixed To A Sliding Walk, Letting The Motion Of The Wind And The Leaves Carry Her Forward. [...] The Trees Overhead Made A Great Sound Of Letting Down Their Dry Rain.

Girl

Rain

Moving

People Who Take Books On Sex To Bed Become Frigid. You Get Self-conscious. You Can't Think A Story. You Can't Think, "i Shall Do A Story To Improve Mankind." Well, It's Nonsense. All The Great Stories, All The Really Worthwhile Plays, Are Emotional Experiences. If You Have To Ask Yourself Whether Or Not You Love A Girl Or You Love A Boy, Forget It. You Don't. A Story Is The Same Way. You Either Feel A Story And Need To Write It, Or You Better Not Write It.

Girl

Sex

Book

Men Are Nuts. Young Men Are Crazy. We All Love Toys. I'm Toy Oriented. I Write About Toys. I've Got A Lot Of Toys. Hundreds Of Things. But Computers Are Toys, And Men Like To Mess Around With Smart Dumb Things. They Feel Creative.

Crazy

Smart

Writing

Recreate The World In Your Own Image And Make It Better For Your Having Been Here.

World

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

I Felt A Bit Bookish, Cut Off From Life.

Cutting

Felt

Bits

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

I'm Not Really Dying Today. No Person Ever Died That Had A Family. I'll Be Around A Long Time. A Thousand Years From Now, A Whole Township Of My Offspring Will Be Biting Sour Apples In The Gumwood Shade.

Family

Years

Apples

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

We Need Not To Be Let Alone. We Need To Be Really Bothered Once In A While. How Long Is It Since You Were Really Bothered? About Something Important, About Something Real?

Real

Long

Important

All Silence Is. All Emptiness. And Now: The Dawn.

Silence

Dawn

Emptiness

Love What You Do And Do What You Love.

What You Love

We All Are Rich And Ignore The Buried Fact Of Accumulated Wisdom.

Writing

Facts

Rich

I Used To Take My Short Stories To Girls' Homes And Read Them To Them. Can You Imagine The Reaction Reading A Short Story To A Girl Instead Of Pawing Her?

Girl

Reading

Home

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

Don’t Worry About Things. Don’t Push. Just Do Your Work And You’ll Survive. The Important Thing Is To Have A Ball, To Be Joyful, To Be Loving And To Be Explosive. Out Of That Comes Everything And You Grow.

Motivational

Work

Worry

I Take This Continent With Me Into The Grave.

Graves

Continents

Oh God, The Terrible Tyranny Of The Majority. We All Have Our Harps To Play. And It's Up To You To Know With Which Ear You'll Listen.

Play

Tyranny Of The Majority

Up To You

Why Live? Life Was Its Own Answer. Life Was The Propagation Of More Life And The Living Of As Good A Life As Possible.

Live Life

Answers

Martian Chronicles

Melt All The Guns, I Thought, Break The Knives, Burn The Guillotines-and The Malicious Will Still Write Letters That Kill.

Writing

Gun

Knives

And What, You Ask, Does Writing Teach Us? First And Foremost, It Reminds Us That We Are Alive And That It Is Gift And A Privilege, Not A Right. We Must Earn Life Once It Has Been Awarded Us. Life Asks For Rewards Back Because It Has Favored Us With Animation. So While Our Art Cannot, As We Wish It Could, Save Us From Wars, Privation, Envy, Greed, Old Age, Or Death, It Can Revitalize Us Amidst It All.

Art

War

Writing

Everyone Must Leave Something Behind When He Dies, My Grandfather Said. A Child Or A Book Or A Painting Or A House Or A Wall Built Or A Pair Of Shoes Made. Or A Garden Planted. Something Your Hand Touched Some Way So Your Soul Has Somewhere To Go When You Die, And When People Look At That Tree Or That Flower You Planted, You're There.

Children

Wall

Flower

The Things That You Do Should Be Things That You Love, And Things That You Love Should Be Things That You Do.

Should

He Glanced Back At The Wall. How Like A Mirror, Too, Her Face. Impossible; For How Many People Did You Know Who Reflected Your Own Light To You? People Were More Often--he Searched For A Simile, Found One In His Work--torches, Blazing Away Until They Whiffed Out. How Rarely Did Other People's Faces Take Of You And Throw Back To You Your Own Expression, Your Own Innermost Trembling Thought?

Wall

Mirrors

Light

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

With School Turning Out More Runners, Jumpers, Racers, Tinkerers, Grabbers, Snatchers, Fliers, And Swimmers Instead Of Examiners, Critics, Knowers, And Imaginative Creators, The Word 'intellectual,' Of Course, Became The Swear Word It Deserved To Be.

School

Intellectual

Swimmer

So While Our Art Cannot, As We Wish It Could, Save Us From Wars, Privation, Envy, Greed, Old Age, Or Death, It Can Revitalize Us Amidst It All.

Art

War

Envy

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, Montag, We're The Happiness Boys. We Stand Against The Small Tide Of Those Who Want To Make Everyone Unhappy With Conflicting Theory And Thought.

Boys

Unhappy

Want

I Think The Reason My Stories Have Been So Successful Is That I Have A Strong Sense Of Metaphor.

Strong

Successful

Thinking

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

If Someone Tells You To Do Something For Money, Tell Them To Go To Hell.

Hell

Go To Hell

Ifs

Monday Burn Millay, Wednesday Whitman, Friday Faulkner, Burn 'em To Ashes, Then Burn The Ashes. That's Our Official Slogan.

Friday

Monday

Ashes

Don’t Think. Thinking Is The Enemy Of Creativity.

Creativity

Thinking

Creative

You Will Have To Write And Put Away Or Burn A Lot Of Material Before You Are Comfortable In This Medium. You Might As Well Start Now And Get The Work Done. For I Believe That Eventually Quantity Will Make For Quality.

Believe

Writing

Quality

I'm Not A Serious Person, And I Don't Like Serious People.

Serious Person

People

Serious

The Major Networks, The Cable Networks, They're Being Prosecutors. They're Judges And Jurors And Executioners. Well, C'mon, That's Ridiculous. But They're Doing It.

Judging

Ridiculous

Executioners

Science And Religion Have To Go Hand In Hand With The Mystery, Because There's A Certain Point Beyond Which You Say, "there Are No Answers."

Hands

Answers

Mystery

This Is The Emotional Thing, You See - You Must Galvanize People, So They Want To Be Completely Alive And Live Forever, Or The Next Thing To It. And Out Of That Comes Art, Then, And Survival Through Emotion.

Art

Emotional

People

The Only Science Fiction I Have Written Is Fahrenheit 451. It's The Art Of The Possible. Science Fiction Is The Art Of The Possible. It Could Happen. It Has Happened.

Art

Fiction

Happened

My Passions Drive Me To The Typewriter Every Day Of My Life, And They Have Driven Me There Since I Was Twelve. So I Never Have To Worry About Schedules. Some New Thing Is Always Exploding In Me, And It Schedules Me, I Don’t Schedule It. It Says: Get To The Typewriter Right Now And Finish This.

Passion

Typewriters

Worry

Fame And Money Are Gifts Given To Us Only After We Have Gifted The World With Our Best, Our Lonely, Our Individual Truths.

Lonely

World

Fame

If We Try To Deny The Darkness In Our Souls Then We'll Become Completely Dark.

Dark

Soul

Trying

Science Fiction Is A Great Way To Pretend You Are Writing About The Future When In Reality You Are Attacking The Recent Past And The Present. You Can Criticize Communists, Racists, Fascists Or Any Other Clear And Present Danger, And They Can't Imagine You Are Writing About Them.

Writing

Reality

Past

There Is Only One Type Of Story In The World-your Story.

Stories

World

Type

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

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. Acting Without Knowing Takes You Right Off The Cliff.

Knowing

Acting

Cliffs

Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.

2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.

2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.

2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.

3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.

3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.

3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.

4. Proper Usage of Quotes

4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.

4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.

4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).

5. Common Mistakes to Avoid

5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.

5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.

5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.

6. Quotes in Different Contexts

6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.

6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.

6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.

7. Punctuation and Formatting

Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:

Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.

Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.

Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.

8. Ethical Considerations

Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes

Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.

Conclusion

Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.

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