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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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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
Way
Anybody
Egomaniac
Good
Mistake
Egomaniacs
Things
Ways
Hubris
Sound
Suppose
Else
Draw
Certain
Draws
Many
Mistakes
Made
Filled

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The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.
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Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion.
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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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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.
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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.
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Repent, Harlequin, said the Ticktock Man. Get stuffed, the Harlequin replied.
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Writing is a holy chore.
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When belief in a god dies, the god dies.
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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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You must never be afraid to go there.
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be careful of monsters with teeth
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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.
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I usually say I write for the smartest, cleverest, wittiest audience I know, and that's me.
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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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I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid.
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They minute people fall in love they become liars.
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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.
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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.
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The real name for 'science' is magic.
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They change scapegoats at the networks more regularly than some people change socks.
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