If you have spent any time at all on Twitter looking at writing quotes, you’ve seen at least one Ray Bradbury quote. In fact, you’ve probably seen dozens. Don’t believe me?
If you write a hundred short stories and they are bad, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. You fail only if you stop writing.
RAY BRADBURY— Jon Winokur (@AdviceToWriters) June 18, 2017
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
Ray Bradbury#writing #film #books
Cheval pic.twitter.com/KqAkNUdGXB— Novelicious (@noveliciouss) June 15, 2017
Your intuition knows what to write, so get out of the way.
—Ray Bradbury— pic.twitter.com/6JoxB5c1AE— Frank Scozzari (@ScozzariFrank) June 20, 2017
https://twitter.com/WritersProfits/status/876986259863773184
https://twitter.com/VeganYogaDude/status/877229896933814273
This is just the tip of the iceberg. These quotes go on for days. The one you’ll see over and over and over again is this one:
Ray Bradbury: "You must stay drunk on writing so reality may not destroy you." #writing
— Scott Myers (@GoIntoTheStory) June 20, 2017
Confession: I hate this quote. I just think it’s silly and meaningless.
There are so many of these quotes from Bradbury, though, because he is one of the most influential American writers ever and he has, well, very quotable advice for writers. He is probably best known for Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, but has written 27 novels and over 600 short stories. He even has an award in his name for excellence in screenwriting—The Ray Bradbury Award. On his death in 2012, The New York Times called Bradbury “the writer most responsible for bringing modern science fiction into the literary mainstream.”
For our seventh installment of Advice from Famous Writers, here is Ray Bradbury near the end of his life in 2009. The sound quality is not great, but the advice is. It’s a very short video and I want to call out only two short quotes, although the story that ends the video is fun.
“Do what you love and love what you do.”
This is beautiful. It immediately brings to mind two of my favorite quotes. The first is from John Wooden: “Things turn out best for those who make the best out of the ways things turn out.” The second is a mantra my father has always had: “You can either find a way to do what you love for your job, or learn to love the job that you’re doing.”
If you love writing, do it.
Here, I’ll make it easy for you to add to more Bradbury quotes on the internet.
[clickToTweet tweet=””Do what you love and love what you do.” -Ray Bradbury #amwriting #writerslife #writing” quote=”‘Do what you love and love what you do.’ -Ray Bradbury #amwriting”]
“Don’t do anything for money… You cannot write for people for money. You must write for yourself.'”
All of us aspire to be well-paid, best selling authors. We dream of the day that the royalties will be pouring in. Bradbury’s advice is poignant to this fact.
Yes, while we want to make a good living as authors, that can’t be the reason that we write. You must write first for yourself and no one else. If you don’t write for yourself, your writing will be empty.
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I love Ray Bradbury writing quotes! And for me, the one that you hate is actually the one that rings pretty true for me. LOL. I know you’ve probably seen it at the end of my emails. I think some of us get so bogged down in the daily grind of life – the stress, paying bills, the constant demands – that once we sit down to finally immerse ourselves in the world of writing, we can forget that stuff for awhile and just bask in the glory of simply being nothing more than the conduit for a muse. When at last I ease back and read what I’ve written, I think, “Hmm…not too bad.” And that’s one reason why I write, because the characters are calling me to tell their stories. Now and then, I have a moment of wonder and it drags me away from reality. It’s actually pretty refreshing. Also, I can’t drink alcohol because of certain medications, so I often get “drunk on writing”. 😉
I read somewhere once that most writers are more comfortable in their own minds than in the outside world. And though we draw from our observations of people and the environment, I think that’s true in a way. Sometimes writing is far easier to deal with than the stressors of life. The fictional escape is what our readers look forward to as well…
I love your explanation of what you like about it, Marie! Well said!
I think I just have fatigue from seeing it so much on social media over the years. I’ve seen that writing quote more than any other writing quote out there. You’ve almost convinced me to reconsider my feelings toward the quote. Almost… 🙂