Life & Wisdom Quote by Clive Barker

Bravery, Barker suggests, isn’t a personality trait you stockpile in advance; it’s a behavior you attempt under pressure. The first clause flatters the rational mind - you can schedule courage like a workout, rehearse lines, imagine worst-case scenarios. Then he undercuts that comfort with a quiet dare: it’s better to just try. The pivot matters. Planning can be a form of control, and control can be a camouflage for fear. “Try” admits messiness: trembling hands, half-failed attempts, courage that shows up late.

As a writer whose work often wades into body horror and the erotic charge of transgression, Barker knows that fear isn’t abstract. It’s sensory. It lives in the skin. His intent feels less like motivational poster talk and more like craft advice for living with the unknown. Artists, especially, are tempted to wait for the perfect internal state - confidence, clarity, readiness. Barker’s line treats that as a trap. Bravery doesn’t arrive as a clean signal; it’s manufactured in the act.

The subtext is ethically pointed: “plan to be brave” can become a moral alibi. You can tell yourself you’re the kind of person who would speak up, leave, confess, create, resist - someday. “Just try” collapses that distance between identity and action. It’s a small sentence with a practical theology: courage isn’t who you are, it’s what you do, imperfectly, while you’re still scared.