In Hollywood, they think they know it all. You, as a writer, are essentially an outsider. Novelists and short-story writers, especially.
Interpretation
Writers often feel like outsiders in the film industry, despite its perceptions of knowledge and creativity.
Ray Bradbury suggests that in Hollywood, there is a prevailing arrogance among filmmakers who believe they possess all the answers. This creates a barrier for writers, particularly novelists and short-story creators, who find themselves on the fringes of this culture, struggling to produce their work in an environment that doesn't fully appreciate their art or their unique perspective.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the struggles of writers in the film industry.
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.
When people say 'What are underground comics?' I think the best way you can define them is just the absolute freedom involved... we didn't have anyone standing over us.
I continue to get further away from the usual painter's tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added.
Well, you put a little piece of yourself into every character that you do. Even if you're playing some psychotic person, which of course I'm not, some part of you is in that character and it's hopefully believable. I always come back to the fact that my own instinct is better than something I build in my mind.
A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.
It is almost impossible to reconcile self expression with the creative act.
The general public, formerly profoundly indifferent to everything to do with building, has been shaken out of its torpor; personal interest in architecture as something that concerns every one of us in our daily lives has been very widely aroused; and the broad line of its future development are already clearly discernible.
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