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.
I believe every one of us possesses a fundamental right to tell our own story.
I was tired of seeing the Graces always depicted as beautiful young things. I think wisdom comes with age and life and pain. And knowing what matters.
When I had nothing more to lose, I was given everything. When I ceased to be who I am, I found myself. When I experienced humiliation and yet kept on walking, I understood that I was free to choose my destiny.
There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge-that is everywhere, that is Atman, that is in me and you and in every creature, and I am beginning to believe that this knowledge has no worse enemy than the man of knowledge, than learning.
You only go around once, but if you play your cards right, once is enough.
The more humble and obedient to God a man is, the more wise and at peace he will be in all that he does.
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