Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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

More quotes by Harlan Ellison

Image
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
Image
My philosophy of life is that the meek shall inherit nothing but debasement, frustration, and ignoble deaths.
Harlan Ellison
Image
When belief in a god dies, the god dies.
Harlan Ellison
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Writing is a holy chore.
Harlan Ellison
Image
You must never be afraid to go there.
Harlan Ellison
Image
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
Image
The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison
Image
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
Image
They minute people fall in love they become liars.
Harlan Ellison
Image
Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled.
Harlan Ellison
Image
In these days of widespread illiteracy, functional illiteracy... anything that keeps people stupid is a felony.
Harlan Ellison
Image
For the first time we have a weapon that nobody has used for thirty years. This gives me great hope for the human race.
Harlan Ellison
Image
I will live to piss in the open mouths or the open graves of my enemies, whichever comes first.
Harlan Ellison
Image
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
Image
[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
Image
A man may truly live in his dreams, his noblest dreams, but only, only if he is worthy of those dreams.
Harlan Ellison
Image
I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid.
Harlan Ellison
Image
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.
Harlan Ellison