Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellisonis an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth27 May 1934
CityCleveland, OH
CountryUnited States of America
Harlan Ellison quotes about
sex sex-and-love
Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled.
stars war doctors
Star Wars is adolescent nonsense; Close Encounters is obscurist drivel; ‘Star Trek’ can turn your brains into puree of bat guano; and the greatest science fiction series of all time is Doctor Who! And I'll take you all on, one-by-one or all in a bunch to back it up!
writing audience knows
I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me.
writing becoming tricks
The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.
life care middle
Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning; the end will take care of itself.
nice civilization history
K is for "Kenghis Khan"; He was a very nice person. History has no record of him. There is a moral in that, somewhere.
writing holy millionaire
You're a writer. And that's something better than being a millionaire. Because it's something holy.
self-esteem typewriters deep-breathing
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.
dream worthy ifs
You can live in your dreams, but only if you are worthy of them.
looks argument microphones
Don't start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don't. They'll make you look like chopped liver.
jobs writing years
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.
writing doe warfare
Entertain, yes. That goes without saying. But a good writer does that automatically, it's built into the machine. Telling a thumpingly good, mesmerizing story is what one does without question. But beyond that, any writer worth his/her hire knows that all writing, one way or another, is subversive. It is guerrilla warfare against the status quo.
perfection excellence locks
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.
enemy firsts mouths
I will live to piss in the open mouths or the open graves of my enemies, whichever comes first.