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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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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
Praise
Intelligent
Reader
Wittiest
Please
Wisest
Audience
Ignore
Universe
Readers
Write
Thank
Writing
Critics

More quotes by Harlan Ellison

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You must never be afraid to go there.
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Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion.
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Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled.
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And we passed through the cavern of rats. And we passed through the path of boiling steam. And we passed through the country of the blind. And we passed through the slough of despond. And we passed through the vale of tears. And we came, finally, to the ice caverns.
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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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.
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The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.
Harlan Ellison
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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.
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The real name for 'science' is magic.
Harlan Ellison
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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.
Harlan Ellison
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In these days of widespread illiteracy, functional illiteracy... anything that keeps people stupid is a felony.
Harlan Ellison
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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.
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 usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me.
Harlan Ellison
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You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.
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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The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison
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My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration, and ignoble deaths.
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