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Writing is the hardest work in the world. I have been a bricklayer and a truck driver, and I tell you – as if you haven't been told a million times already – that writing is harder. Lonelier. And nobler and more enriching.
Harlan Ellison
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Harlan Ellison
Age: 84 †
Born: 1934
Born: May 27
Died: 2018
Died: June 27
Film Critic
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
Science Fiction Writer
Screenwriter
Writer
Cleveland
Ohio
Harlan Jay Ellison
Tell
Havens
Lonelier
Book
Haven
Enriching
Writing
Harder
Nobler
Work
Already
Driver
World
Told
Truck
Millions
Drivers
Times
Hardest
Bricklayer
Language
Million
Bricklayers
More quotes by Harlan Ellison
be careful of monsters with teeth
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I have no mouth. And I must scream.
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Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion.
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I cannot pay attention to what people say about my work. For me, personally, I am just this shards-and-ashes human being, who really gets upset when someone says something bad about me. If it's true, I cop to it. If I have any good qualities, it's that.
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I can't picture in my mind three hundred and sixty thousand dollars... When I think of it, all I can see in my mind is a big nickel.
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Like a wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we were, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.
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Thank your readers and the critics who praise you, and then ignore them. Write for the most intelligent, wittiest, wisest audience in the universe: Write to please yourself.
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I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me.
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[On love:] I have no respect for anyone who says they've given up, or that they're not looking or that they're tired. That is to abrogate one's responsibility as a human being.
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I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid.
Harlan Ellison
Thus, from admiration of one wise and innocent child, and from a misheard remark, the process that not even Aristotle could codify was triggered. Where do you get your ideas? I purposely mishear things.
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My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration, and ignoble deaths.
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Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning the end will take care of itself.
Harlan Ellison
I made as many mistakes as anybody else. I sound as if I'm an egomaniac, and I suppose in some ways I'm filled with hubris because I know how good I am at certain things. But other things, I can't do at all. I can't draw.
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I think [religion] is presumptuous and I think it is silly, because it makes you believe that you are less than what you can be. As long as you can blame everything on some unseen deity, you don’t ever have to be responsible for your own behavior.
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The real story of our times is seldom told in the horse-puckey-filled memoirs of dopey, self-serving presidents or generals, but in the outrageous, demented lives of guys like Lenny Bruce, Giordano Bruno, Scott Fitzgerald - and Paul Krassner. The burrs under society's saddle. The pains in the ass.
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I will use big words from time to time, the meanings of which I may only vaguely perceive, in hopes such cupidity will send you scampering to your dictionary: I will call such behavior 'public service'.
Harlan Ellison
Repent, Harlequin, said the Ticktock Man. Get stuffed, the Harlequin replied.
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A man may truly live in his dreams, his noblest dreams, but only, only if he is worthy of those dreams.
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Writing is a holy chore.
Harlan Ellison