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The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.

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
Trick
Staying
Tricks
Writer
Becoming
Writing

More quotes by Harlan Ellison

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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
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The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison
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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
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be careful of monsters with teeth
Harlan Ellison
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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.
Harlan Ellison
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Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled.
Harlan Ellison
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That's probably one of my biggest gripes with the Internet - that it settles for mediocrity and disinformation, which puts all information on the same level. Everything has the same value, whether it's Albert Einstein speaking, or yoohoo27@msn.com.
Harlan Ellison
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They change scapegoats at the networks more regularly than some people change socks.
Harlan Ellison
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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.
Harlan Ellison
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You must never be afraid to go there.
Harlan Ellison
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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
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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
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I will live to piss in the open mouths or the open graves of my enemies, whichever comes first.
Harlan Ellison
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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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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
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They minute people fall in love they become liars.
Harlan Ellison
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The more you know, the more unflinchingly you deny casual beliefs and Accepted Wisdom when it flies in the face of reality, the more carefully you observe the world and its people around you, the better chance you have of writing something meaningful and well-crafted.
Harlan Ellison
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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.
Harlan Ellison
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I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me.
Harlan Ellison
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Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.
Harlan Ellison