If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both. You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you. 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

“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

“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

“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

“What are the best things and the worst things in your life, and when are you going to get around to whispering or shouting them?”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

“Write. Don't think. Relax.”
― 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

“We must take arms each and every day, perhaps knowing that the battle cannot be entirely won, but fight we must, if only a gentle bout. The smallest effort to win means, at the end of each day, a sort of victory. Remember that pianist who said that if he did not pratice every day he would know, if he did not practice for two days, the critics would know, after three days, his audiences would know.

A variation of this is true for writers. Not that your style, whatever that is, would melt out of shape in those few days.

But what would happen is that the world would catch up with and try to sicken you. If you did not write every day, the poisons would accumulate and you would begin to die, or act crazy, or both.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

“Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough. 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.
And, above all, poetry is compacted metaphor or simile. Such metaphors, like Japanese paper flowers, may expand outward into gigantic shapes. Ideas lie everywhere through the poetry books, yet how rarely have I heard short story teachers recommending them for browsing.

What poetry? Any poetry that makes your hair stand up along your arms. Don’t force yourself too hard. Take it easy. Over the years you may catch up to, move even with, and pass T. S. Eliot on your way to other pastures. You say you don’t understand Dylan Thomas? Yes, but your ganglion does, and your secret wits, and all your unborn children. Read him, as you can read a horse with your eyes, set free and charging over an endless green meadow on a windy day.”
― 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

“In your reading, find books to improve your color sense, your sense of shape and size in the world.”
― Ray Bradbury, Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

“We never sit anything out. We are cups, quietly and constantly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”
― 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

“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