Quotes from Dan Harmon

'I want to touch people but if I touch them in real life they'll slap me.' That's what writing isit's a gross person getting a hug.

If your ratings are high and there's money being made, you're allowed to be a perfectionist in television.

I am a collaborator with everyone who agrees that I need to be in control. I happily collaborate with my loyalists.

When you are in the 8 o'clock position, you can either be a cultural phenomenon, or you're endangered. It's a tough time slot.

I don't think it's going to be possible for the next generation of writers to tell stories without telling stories about telling stories.

You have to just look at it like Titanic: I know the ship sinks, but this is a love story

I don't really have a lot of appropriate feelings for people on an individual basis, but I've always wanted to make people happy.

When I was a kid I never knew the difference between a sitcom and a drama. I just knew what my parents were watching and what was making them happy.

My passion for 'Star Trek' is actually rooted in my love of television and the art of franchise and a premise designed to stick people together that have to figure out what to do.

I wish that television would stop selling our hatred of ourselves, and start seducing us with our love of ourselves.

I love 30 Rock. It's one of my favorite shows. It's certainly the gold standard of comedy writing.

I am absolutely and inherently self-destructive in that I am always making sure I'm doing what I want to do.

Truthfully, I'm pretty stuck in the '80s.

When you watch the sitcoms that were the big hits when I was growing up, TV was still just TV. It was allowed to just be TV. There were three channels that were competing for the whole family and you couldn't take your business elsewhere.

Well, the average person comes home from work really tired, and just wants to flip through channels until they land on the thing that's the least objectionable to them. They're not looking for their new favorite TV show because they know that that search will take forever and they'll go to bed unhappy.

I care very much what the fans think. I'm starting to loosen my grip on caring about what critics say, because I think that critics care about what fans think of them, too, so there's a little bit of a refraction there, through that glass.

I think women are different, and I think having them in the room is crucial to a family comedy, ensemble comedy, television comedy, where half the eyeballs on your show are women.

What's important is passion, investment, and people laughing out loud as they work.

Garry Shandling has always been a pioneer of… meta entertainment. He's always been a defender of the creative right to use the frame as part of the painting.

People often ask me about what constitutes a nerd-friendly show - like, does it have to have sci-fi elements? But I think it's just a show that satisfies the secret craving we all have to be obsessed with something and not feel at all stupid about it.

Find your voice, shout it from the rooftops, and keep doing it until the people that are looking for you find you.

Take it easy. Nothing you do matters as much as you think. Your greatest achievements aren't yours at all, they're accidents and jokes. You're a puppet, the universe does the work, and it gets the most done when you're moving the least. Surrender, flow, relax. Don't be hard on yourself, don't put pressure on yourself, life is just a chain of experiments and results, and you'll be perfect when you're dead.

Nothing you do matters as much as you think. Your greatest achievements aren't yours at all, they're accidents and jokes. You're a puppet, the universe does the work, and it gets the most done when you're moving the least. Surrender, flow, relax. Don't be hard on yourself, don't put pressure on yourself, life is just a chain of experiments and results, and you'll be perfect when you're dead.

The concept of doing holiday episodes is a huge part of what's fantastic about doing TV. And viewers agree; you see the numbers going up for holiday episodes.