Harlan Ellison Quotes

I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without sadness, there can be no happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned. Adult. You have become adult.

~ Harlan Ellison

The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.

~ Harlan Ellison

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

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

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

Writing a novel is like going a great distance to take a small shit.

~ Harlan Ellison

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

~ Harlan Ellison

Who wants a library full of books you've already read?

~ Harlan Ellison

A writer who writes more than he reads is an amateur.

~ Harlan Ellison

Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste?

~ Harlan Ellison

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

Because the chief commodity a writer has to sell is his courage. And if he has none, he is more than a coward. He is a sellout and a fink and a heretic, because writing is a holy chore.

~ Harlan Ellison

Uh, excuse me, sir, I, uh, don't known how to uh, to uh, tell you this, but you were three minutes late. The schedule is a little, uh, bit off.He grinned sheepishly.That's ridiculous! murmured the Ticktockman behind his mask. Check your watch. And then he went into his office, going mrmee, mrmee, mrmee, mrmee.

~ Harlan Ellison

And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshipers of the sun's passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don't keep the schedule tight.

~ Harlan Ellison

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.

~ Harlan Ellison

To see an almost certain horrible death--you know how crowds all sit at the edge of their seats, /praying/ subconsciously for a spectacular accident--and then to be whisked away from it so suddenly--brought to the edge of tragedy, and then to have their better natures win out, showing them how much nicer they always /knew/ they were--that was the supreme thrill.

~ Harlan Ellison

The passion for revenge should never blind you to the pragmatics of the situation. There are some people who are so blighted by their past, so warped by experience and the pull of that silken cord, that they never free themselves of the shadows that live in the time machine...And if there is a kind thought due them, it may be found contained in the words of the late Gerald Kersh, who wrote:... there are men whom one hates until a certain moment when one sees, through a chink in their armour, the writhing of something nailed down and in torment.

~ Harlan Ellison

Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin works, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad coocoo newness. Jelly beans!

~ Harlan Ellison