Quotes from Harlan Ellison

I'm like a snake sleeping on a rock. I won't bother you unless you poke a stick at me.

K is for "Kenghis Khan." He was a very nice person. History has no record of him. There is a moral in that, somewhere.

Love Ain't Nothing but Sex Misspelled

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.

The two most abundant things in the universe are Hydrogren and stupidity.

You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.

I know that pain is the most important thing in the universes. Greater than survival, greater than love, greater even than the beauty it brings about. For without pain, there can be no pleasure. Without sadness, there can be no happiness. Without misery there can be no beauty. And without these, life is endless, hopeless, doomed and damned. Adult. You have become adult.

The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity.

The ability to dream is all I have to give. That is my responsibility; that is my burden. And even I grow tired.

If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.

HATE. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.

I don't mind you thinking I'm stupid, but don't talk to me like I'm stupid

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.

The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.

The world is turning into a cesspool of imbeciles.

Don't start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don't. They'll make you look like chopped liver.

You must never be afraid to go there.

In these days of widespread illiteracy, functional illiteracy... anything that keeps people stupid is a felony.

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.

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'.

Now begin in the middle, and later learn the beginning; the end will take care of itself.

They minute people fall in love they become liars.

I hate when a director says to me 'Here's how I envision this scene'...excuse me? It's right here in the script - I 'envisioned' it FOR you. Do what I wrote. If you want to 'envision', you should become a writer. Where the fuck were you when the page was blank?

Get a day job, make your money from that, and write to please yourself.