But with the library, it's like catnip, I suppose: you begin to run in circles because there's so much to look at and read.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the overwhelming abundance of knowledge available in libraries, comparing it to the excitement and distraction of catnip for cats.
In this quote, Ray Bradbury expresses the idea that libraries, filled with countless books and resources, can captivate and distract readers in a way that makes them feel both excited and overwhelmed. Just like a cat drawn to catnip, a person can find themselves running in circles, fascinated by the infinite opportunities to explore and learn, highlighting the allure and richness of literature and knowledge.
In practice
This quote would be great to share during a library fundraiser event to highlight the importance of access to knowledge.
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.
Why is it that we understand playing the cello will require work, but we attribute writing to the magic of inspiration?
Teaching sometimes seems like not one profession, but every profession. We ask them to be doctor and diplomat, calf-herder, map-maker, wizard and watchman, electricians of the mind.
Writers don't give prescriptions. They give headaches!
No man should bring children into the world who is unwilling to persevere to the end in their nature and education.
Think about being a teenager and feeling like school is just about taking tests you may or may not be interested in, after which someone will judge whether or not you're smart. No one's going to be inspired by that.
An academic discipline, or any other semiotic domain, for that matter, is not primarily content, in the sense of facts and principles. It is rather primarily a lived and historically changing set of distinctive social practices. It is in these practices that 'content' is generated, debated, and transformed via certain distinctive ways of thinking, talking, valuing, acting, and, often, writing and reading.
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