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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.

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
Believe
Responsible
Think
Behavior
Thinking
Less
Presumptuous
Religion
Deity
Makes
Deities
Ever
Unseen
Everything
Silly
Long
Blame

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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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Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning the end will take care of itself.
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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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I have no mouth. And I must scream.
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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.
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You must never be afraid to go there.
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They change scapegoats at the networks more regularly than some people change socks.
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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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You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.
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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.
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The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.
Harlan Ellison
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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?
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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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I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me.
Harlan Ellison
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Repent, Harlequin, said the Ticktock Man. Get stuffed, the Harlequin replied.
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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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Writing is a holy chore.
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.
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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.
Harlan Ellison
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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