We travel, initially, to lose ourselves, and we travel, next, to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again—to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.
Interpretation
Travel helps us to explore ourselves and experience life with renewed enthusiasm.
In this quote, Ray Bradbury reflects on the transformative nature of travel. He suggests that our journeys allow us to explore different facets of ourselves, reclaim lost innocence, and reignite our passion for life. Traveling opens our hearts and minds, helping us to appreciate the present moment and engage deeply with the world around us, ultimately leading to personal growth and self-discovery.
In practice
During a motivational speech about the importance of travel for self-growth.
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.
To other countries, I may go as a tourist, but to India, I come as a pilgrim.
Go at least once a year to a place you've never been before.
You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown, that reveals you with yourself.
to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.
It's a common mistake for vacationing Americans to assume that everyone around them is French and therefore speaks no English whatsoever. [...] An experienced traveler could have told by looking at my shoes that I wasn't French. And even if I were French, it's not as if English is some mysterious tribal dialect spoken only by anthropologists and a small population of cannibals.
Of all possible debauches, traveling is the greatest that I know; that's the one they invented when they got tired of all the others.
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