21 Inspiring Quotes from Zen in the Art of Writing (by Ray Bradbury)

If you’re looking for the best Zen in the Art of Writing quotes you’ve come to the right place. We compiled a list of 21 quotes that best summarise the message of Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing. Let these quotes inspire you!

Zen in the Art of Writing Quotes

I take this continent with me into the grave.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

We all are rich and ignore the buried fact of accumulated wisdom.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is a gift and a privilege, not a right.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Writing is supposed to be difficult, agonizing, a dreadful exercise, a terrible occupation.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. It keeps you aware of your nose, your eye, your ear, your tongue, your hand.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Every morning I jump out of bed and step on a landmine. The landmine is me. After the explosion, I spend the rest of the day putting the pieces together.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Yell. Jump. Play. Out-run those sons-of-bitches. They’ll never live the way you live. Go do it.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

I thought you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment, of course, any decent idea folds up its paws, turns on its back, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Ours is a culture and a time immensely rich in trash as it is in treasures.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Now that I have you thoroughly confused, let me pause to hear your own dismayed cry.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

I came on the old and best ways of writing through ignorance and experiment and was startled when truths leaped out of brushes like quail before gunshot.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

Think of Shakespeare and Melville and you think of thunder, lightning, wind. They all knew the joy of creating in large or small forms, on unlimited or restricted canvases. These are the children of the gods.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

It is a lie to write in such way as to be rewarded by fame offered you by some snobbish quasi-literary groups in the intellectual gazettes.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

The other six or seven drafts are going to be pure torture. So why not enjoy the first draft, in the hope that your joy will seek and find others in the world who, reading your story, will catch fire, too?

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

You grow ravenous. You run fevers. You know exhilarations. You can’t sleep at night, because your beast-creature ideas want out and turn you in your bed. It is a grand way to live.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

We need our Arts to teach us how to breathe

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

And metaphors like cats behind your smile, Each one wound up to purr, each one a pride, Each one a fine gold beast you’ve hid inside (…)

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

We have our Arts so we won’t die of Truth

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing

So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

— Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing