It takes writing a billion bad words before you get to the good ones.
Interpretation
Success in writing requires perseverance through many failures.
Ray Bradbury's quote emphasizes the necessity of practice and resilience in the creative process. It suggests that only through the willingness to write extensively and often poorly can one eventually produce quality work, highlighting that mastery comes with sustained effort and overcoming initial shortcomings.
In practice
A motivational speech for aspiring writers at a literary conference.
I've written about 2,000 short stories; I've only published 300 and I feel I'm still learning. Any man who keeps working is not a failure. He may not be a great writer, but if he applies the old fashioned virtues of hard, constant labor, he'll eventually make some kind of career for himself as a writer. Ray Bradbury, 1967 interview (Doing the Math - that means for every story he sold, he wrote six "un-publishable" ones. Keep typing!)
I never went to college, so I went to the library.
There must be something in books, something we canβt imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You donβt stay for nothing.
I think the sun is a flower, That blooms for just one hour.
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.
You can't try to do things; you simply must do them.
[My favorite word is] and. It is so hopeful.
Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitudes toward life. The longer I live the more convinced I become that life is 10 percent what happens to us and 90 percent how we respond to it.
One day a long time from now you'll cease to care anymore whom you please or what anybody has to say about you. That's when you'll finally produce the work you're capable of.
Temperance and labor are the two real physicians of man.
No books ever go into my laboratory. The thing I am to do and the way are revealed to me the moment I am inspired to create something new. Without God to draw aside the curtain, I would be helpless. Only alone can I draw close enough to God to discover His secrets.
The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.
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