All my stories are like the Greek and Roman myths, and the Egyptian myths, and the Old and New Testament.
Interpretation
Bradbury compares his stories to ancient myths and religious texts, highlighting their timeless and universal themes.
Ray Bradbury suggests that his narratives possess a similar depth and significance as the myths from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian cultures, as well as the stories found in the Old and New Testament. This implies that his storytelling transcends ordinary narratives, aiming to convey profound truths about the human experience, much like traditional myths that offer moral and cultural lessons.
In practice
In a literary discussion about the influence of mythology on modern storytelling.
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 movie is born first in my head, dies on paper; is resuscitated by the living persons and real objects I use, which are killed on film but, placed in a certain order and projected on to a screen, come to life again like flowers in water.
A hundred years from now, people will listen to the music of the Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart.
For me, playwriting is and has always been like making a chair. Your concerns are balance, form, timing, lights, space, music. If you don't have these essentials, you might as well be writing a theoretical essay, not a play.
Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves. Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
When the theater gates open, a mob pours inside, and it is the poet's task to turn it into an audience.
When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.