Harlan Ellison Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• What I try to write about are the darkest things in the soul, the mortal dreads... The closer I get to the burning core of my being, the things which are most painful to me, the better is my work.

  Harlan Ellison

  Writing, Soul, Trying

  "Contemporary Authors New Revision Series: A Bio-Bibliographical Guide to Current Writers". Book by Ann Evory, 1982.

  6 Copy quote

• I am not one of these people who instantly takes umbrage when he's corrected or - I love being corrected.

  Harlan Ellison

  Love Is, People

  "Harlan Ellison, Part Two". Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. June 08, 2008.

  7 Copy quote

• I have no mouth. And I must scream.

  Harlan Ellison

  Mouths, Computer, Scream

  "I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream". Book by Harlan Ellison, 2014.

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• Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning; the end will take care of itself.

  Harlan Ellison

  Life, Care, Ends

  Harlan Ellison (2014). “Troublemakers”, p.182, Open Road Media

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• I think love and sex are separate and only vaguely similar. Like the word bear and the word bare. You can get in trouble mistaking one for the other.

  Harlan Ellison

  Sex, Thinking, Bears

  Harlan Ellison (2014). “Shatterday”, p.46, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• In my ugly, elitist opinion we are not all entitled to voice our opinions, we are entitled to pass along our informed opinions.

  Harlan Ellison

  Voice, Ugly, Opinion

  Harlan Ellison (1989). “Harlan Ellison's watching”

  8 Copy quote

• Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.

  Harlan Ellison

  Jobs, Writing, Please

  11 Copy quote

• They change scapegoats at the networks more regularly than some people change socks.

  Harlan Ellison

  Media, People, Sock

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• If you let the image of the messenger get in the way of whatever message there may be, however large or small, that's your problem, not his.

  Harlan Ellison

  May, Way, Messengers

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. June 8, 2008.

  7 Copy quote

• Y is for YGGDRASIL. The legendary Nordic ash tree with its three roots extending into the lands of mortals, giants, and Niflheim, the land of mist, grows in Wisconsin. Legend has it that when the tree falls, the universe will fall. Next Wednesday, the State Highway Commission comes through that empty pasture with a freeway.

  Harlan Ellison

  Fall, Roots, Land

  Harlan Ellison (1978). “Strange wine: fifteen new stories from the nightside of the world”, HarperCollins Publishers

  9 Copy quote

• Time is like a river flowing endlessly through the universe. And if you poled your flatboat in that river you might fight your way against the current and travel upstream into the past. Or go with the flow and rush into the future. This was in a less cynical time before toxic waste dumping and pollution filled the waterway of Chronus with the detritus of empty hours wasted minutes years of repetition and time that has been killed.

  Harlan Ellison

  Fighting, Past, Years

  Harlan Ellison (1989). “Harlan Ellison's watching”

  5 Copy quote

• The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.

  Harlan Ellison

  Dream, Tired, Responsibility

  Harlan Ellison (2014). “Stalking the Nightmare”, p.29, Open Road Media

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• Perfection. Excellence. What a passionate lover. But once having tasted the lips of excellence, once having given oneself to its perfection, how dreary and burdensome and filled with anomie are the remainder of one's waking hours trapped in the shackled lock-step of the merely ordinary, the barely acceptable, the just okay and not a stroke better.

  Harlan Ellison

  Perfection, Excellence, Waking

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• The reward of a successful collaboration is a thing that cannot be produced by either of the parties working alone. It is akin to the benefits of sex with a partner, as opposed to masturbation. The latter is fun, but you show me anyone who has gotten a baby from playing with him or herself, and I'll show you an ugly baby, with just a whole bunch of knuckles.

  Harlan Ellison

  Baby, Sex, Fun

  Harlan Ellison (1975). “Partners in Wonder”

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• Everybody has a talent, whether it's scrapbooking, or kite-flying, or brain surgery, or writing, everybody has a talent. And if they discover it, and they turn it to their purposes and make a living out of it, then they become not "that person," but they become "that writer" or "that doctor" or "that supervisor."

  Harlan Ellison

  Writing, Doctors, Flying

  Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. June 8, 2008.

  6 Copy quote
• 

  I refuse to write the same story twice. I keep experimenting. I keep learning how to work. I've been at it pretty much 50 years, and I'm now beginning to learn how to do the job well.

  Harlan Ellison

  Jobs, Writing, Years

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• Don't start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don't. They'll make you look like chopped liver.

  Harlan Ellison

  Looks, Argument, Microphones

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  9 Copy quote

• Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion.

  Harlan Ellison

  Opinion, Informed Opinions, Entitled

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• There is Harlan Ellison the human being, who takes a crap a couple of times a day, and who farts, and who eats chicken croquettes, if I can find them. And then there is the writer, this writer-person, who is a much finer person than I. Much more orderly, much more meaningful. Worthier, than I [am].

  Harlan Ellison

  Meaningful, Couple, Fart

  "Harlan Ellison, Part Two". Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. June 08, 2008.

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• When you're all alone out there, on the end of the typewriter, with each new story a new appraisal by the world of whether you can still get it up or not, arrogance and self-esteem and deep breathing are all you have. It often looks like egomania. I assure you it's the bold coverup of the absolutely terrified.

  Harlan Ellison

  Self Esteem, Typewriters, Deep Breathing

  Harlan Ellison (2014). “Shatterday”, p.199, Open Road Media

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• I'm nothing. Nothing at all without writing. Without truth, my truth, the only truth I know, it's all a gambol in the pasture without rhythm or sense.

  Harlan Ellison

  Writing, Past, Rhythm

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• When you're a writer, you have to have the passion and the skill and the craft. It's not just enough to have the passion. You've gotta have all three.

  Harlan Ellison

  Passion, Skills, Three

  "Harlan Ellison, Part Two". Interview with Tasha Robinson, www.avclub.com. June 8, 2008.

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• Writing is a holy chore.

  Harlan Ellison

  Writing, Holy, Chores

  Harlan Ellison (1972). “Dangerous Visions”, Berkley

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• Repent, Harlequin," said the Ticktock Man. "Get stuffed," the Harlequin replied.

  Harlan Ellison

  Men, Harlequin, Said

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• It is not merely enough to love literature if one wishes to spend one's life as a writer. It is a dangerous undertaking on the most primitive level. For, it seems to me, the act of writing with serious intent involves enormous personal risk. It entails the ongoing courage for self-discovery. It means one will walk forever on the tightrope, with each new step presenting the possiblity of learning a truth about oneself that is too terrible to bear.

  Harlan Ellison

  Writing, Mean, Discovery

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