I should have written it down

Last week I read a quote about writing that I quite liked, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember where I saw it. Usually I’m good at making a note of something interesting so I can return to it later. I carry a notebook with me everywhere, and a small sketchbook when I have a bag. This is one of the many habits I kept from the few months I spent in animation at Sheridan in the early nineties.

That and the regret of dropping out.

Anyway, I usually write things down but I didn’t this time — the result being I had no idea where I read the quote, what it said, or even who said it. Something about using things you hate, and things you love to motivate writing. I don’t know. I remembered that I liked it.

I’m reading a Joseph Heller book borrowed from a friend. It’s called Good as Gold. The thing I remembered about writing wasn’t in there, but I thought maybe I should look anyway, so I quickly scanned the pages I had already read. It wasn’t there. I did come across this line which I also didn’t write down the first time I read it, and was also looking for:

Education was one of the several fields of knowledge in which he was considered an expert by people who did not know better.

Joseph Heller, Good as Gold

Replace education with whatever it is I do everyday, and that’s how I feel much of the time. If I worked with an actual team of people who were also designers, peers I think they’re called, they’d quickly see what a fraud I am. Whether I am or not, I don’t know. That’s how it feels some days. I’ve internalized so much of the design process I often wonder if I actually know anything.

Anyway the thing about writing wasn’t in that book. Curious about Joseph Heller, I had done a bit of reading about him on the internet the night before, but a search of my browser history turned up nothing about the writing quote.

I thought maybe it was in my RSS feed somewhere, so I searched that, but it wasn’t there either. I mean, did I imagine these words?

Anyway, I don’t know where I read it originally, but I finally did a web search, and The Marginalian provided my answer:

I tell people, make a list of ten things you hate and tear them down in a short story or poem. Make a list of ten things you love and celebrate them. When I wrote Fahrenheit 451 I hated book burners and I loved libraries. So there you are.

Ray Bradbury, speaking to Sam Weller for the Paris Review in 2010

I guess I must have read it in The Marginalian, but I can’t imagine when (the article was from 2013) so I decided maybe I dreamt-remembered the entire thing which sounds super cool, so let’s run with that. 

Bradbury’s quote struck a chord with me because of this illustration about billionaires I’m currently working on.

So there you are.