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. They may like Henry James, but what if you don’t want to write like Henry James? They may like John Irving, for instance, who’s the bore of all time. A lot of the people whose work they’ve taught in the schools for the last thirty years, I can’t understand why people read them and why they are taught.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes the traditional educational system for stifling individual creativity in writing.
Ray Bradbury emphasizes that college may not be the best environment for nurturing writers, as it is often filled with educators who impose their preferences and biases on students. This can hinder a writer's unique voice and discourage them from exploring their own style, ultimately constraining their creative growth.
In practice
In a workshop with aspiring writers, this quote can be used to encourage them to trust their instincts.
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 can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t 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.
Let's teach kids, at the kindergarten level, what the contributions of people of color were to building the United States of America.
Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.
Schools are designed on the assumption that there is a secret to everything in life; that the quality of life depends upon knowing that secret; that secrets can only be known in orderly successions; and that only teachers can properly reveal these secrets. An individual with a schooled mind conceives of the world as a pyramid of classified packages accessible only to those who carry the proper tags.
To have a vision of the cosmic plan, in which every form of life depends on directed movements which have effects beyond their conscious aim, is to understand the child's work and be able to guide it better.
There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men.
English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education - sometimes it's sheer luck, like getting across the street.
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