Quote for Friday

If I were to advise new writers, if I were to advise the new writer in myself, going into the theatre of the Absurd, the almost-Absurd, the theatre of ideas, the any-kind-of-theatre-at-all, I would advise like this:

Tell me no pointless jokes.
I will laugh at your refusal to allow me laughter.

Build in me no tension toward tears and refuse me my lamentations.
I will go find me better wailing walls.

Do not clench my fists for me and hide the target.
I might strike you instead.

Above all, sicken me not unless you show me the way to the ship’s rail. For, please understand, if you poison me, I must be sick. It seems to me that many people writing the sick film, the sick novel, the sick play, have forgotten that poison can destroy minds.

- Ray Bradbury