A Quote by Ray Bradbury

The purpose of fiction is not to nail you to the ground as facts do, but to take you to the edge of the cliff and kick you off so you build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

Quote Topics

Build Cliff Down Edge Facts Fiction Ground Kick Nail Off Purpose Take Way Wings Your

Quote Author

Ray Bradbury
American - Writer
August 22, 1920 - June 5, 2012

I don't think about what I do. I do it. That's Buddhism. I jump off the cliff and build my wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

I've never been in charge of my stories, they've always been in charge of me. As each new one has called to me, ordering me to give it voice and form and life, I've followed the advice I've shared with other writers over the years: jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

You've got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

If people are constantly falling off a cliff, you could place ambulances under the cliff or build a fence on the top of the cliff. We are placing all too many ambulances under the cliff.

Denis Parsons Burkitt

If we listened to our intellect, we’d never have a love affair... or go into business. You’ve got to jump off cliffs and build your wings on the way down.

Annie Dillard

With 'Horror Story', it really was, 'You're going to run; you're going to jump off this cliff, and trust that that Ryan Murphy is going to catch you.' So I just ran head-on into it and jumped off the edge of that cliff.

Cody Fern

In our system, at about 11:30 on election night, they just push you off the edge of the cliff-and that's it. You might scream on the way down, but you're going to hit the bottom, and you're not going to be in elective office.

Walter F. Mondale

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

This whole thing about not kicking someone when they are down is b.s. Not only do you kick him—you kick him until he passes out—then beat him over the head with a baseball bat—then roll him up in an old rug—and throw him off a cliff into the pounding surf below!!!!!

Michael Scanlon

It was the strangest sensation, fallin' in love. 'Bout the only thing I compare it to would be jumpin' off a big cliff. Once you're past the edge, there ain't no particular reason to be graspin' for a line a safety. You just keep on fallin' anyhow, so you might as well enjoy it the whole way down.

Dorothy Garlock

I certainly incorporate facts into my fiction. I take the basic facts from the life of my subject and I pick and choose what to use to construct a really interesting novel. I don't let facts get in the way of my imagination and my exploration of the subject's emotions and relationships.

Melanie Benjamin

I'm driving down the freeway the other day, on my way to Knott's Scary Farm probably, and I hear this report on NPR that the whole lemmings thing was faked in the 1950s. They were shooting a wildlife documentary in the '50s, they found a group of lemmings, and the crew chased them all off a cliff. No lemming has ever jumped off a cliff, purposefully, ever. Isn't that unbelievable?