Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.
Harlan Ellison
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
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
Writing
Trick
Staying
Tricks
Writer
Becoming
More quotes by Harlan Ellison
With the Internet, the greatest disseminator of bad data and bad information the universe has ever known, it's become impossible to trust any news from any source at all, because it's filtered through this crazy yenta gossip line. It's impossible to know anything.
Harlan Ellison
I will live to piss in the open mouths or the open graves of my enemies, whichever comes first.
Harlan Ellison
People don't die from the old diseases any more. They die from new ones, but that's Progress, isn't it? Isn't it?
Harlan Ellison
I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me.
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.
Harlan Ellison
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.
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
My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration, and ignoble deaths.
Harlan Ellison
The trap into which all writers have, will, or should fall into, of writing The Great American Watchamacallit, is such an uncluttered and inviting one that from time to time I'm sure even the greatest have to pull themselves up short by the Shift key to remind themselves that it is story first that they should write.
Harlan Ellison
They change scapegoats at the networks more regularly than some people change socks.
Harlan Ellison
Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion.
Harlan Ellison
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.
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
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
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.
Harlan Ellison
Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled.
Harlan Ellison
They minute people fall in love they become liars.
Harlan Ellison
[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.
Harlan Ellison
Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.
Harlan Ellison
I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid.
Harlan Ellison
