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Harlan Ellison Biography

Harlan Jay Ellison (born May 27, 1934) is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.

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Harlan Ellison Quotes

Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled.

Love, Misspelled, Nothing, Sex, Sex And Love

I think art must be tough! I think art has to be hard. I don't think it should be easy. I think it should take foot-pounds of energy to produce that art, otherwise we would have more mediocre writers, and we don't have room for any more mediocrity in the world. There's already enough of it being visited on us night and day through the Internet, and through television, and through politics.

Art, Energy, Internet, Night, Thinking, World

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.

Certain, Filled, Hubris, Mistake, Sound, Way

Posing the question: does the god of love use underarm deodorant, vaginal spray and fluoride toothpaste?

Doe, Fluoride, Love, Spray, Underarm, Use

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.

Book, Enriching, Tell, Work, World, Writing

When you're a writer, you have to have the passion and the skill and the craft. It's not just enough to have the passion. You've gotta have all three.

Enough, Passion, Skills, Three, Writer

If you let the image of the messenger get in the way of whatever message there may be, however large or small, that's your problem, not his.

Let, May, Messengers, Problem, Way

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

Becoming, Trick, Tricks, Writer, Writing

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.

Beliefs, Flies, Meaningful, Observe, Reality, Writing

Everybody has a talent, whether it's scrapbooking, or kite-flying, or brain surgery, or writing, everybody has a talent. And if they discover it, and they turn it to their purposes and make a living out of it, then they become not "that person," but they become "that writer" or "that doctor" or "that supervisor. "

Brain, Doctors, Everybody, Flying, Make, Writing

I think love and sex are separate and only vaguely similar. Like the word bear and the word bare. You can get in trouble mistaking one for the other.

Bears, Love, Sex, Similar, Thinking, Trouble

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.

Cared, Memories, Names, Time, Way, Wind

I am not one of these people who instantly takes umbrage when he's corrected or - I love being corrected.

Instantly, Love, Love Is, People, Takes, Umbrage

There is no nobler chore in the craft of writing than holding up the mirror of reality and turning it slightly, so we have a new and different perception of the commonplace, the everyday, the 'normal,' the obvious. People are reflected in the glass. The fantasy situation into which you thrust them is the mirror itself. And what we are shown should illuminate and alter our perception of the world around us. Failing that, you have failed totally.

Glasses, Reality, Shown, Turning, Writing

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

Argument, Chopped, Liver, Look, Looks, Microphones

I refuse to write the same story twice. I keep experimenting. I keep learning how to work. I've been at it pretty much 50 years, and I'm now beginning to learn how to do the job well.

Jobs, Learn, Refuse, Write, Writing, Years

I have no mouth. And I must scream.

Computer, Mouth, Mouths, Scream

I have but nothing to say to young girls. They're fine to look at, in the way I would look at a case filled with Shang dynasty glazes, but expecting to carry on a conversation with the average teen-aged young lady is akin to reading Voltaire to a cage filled with chimpanzees. I'm certain they would feel the same alienation for me. I can live with that knowledge.

Dynasty, Girl, Reading, Same, Say, Women

The real name for 'science' is magic.

Real, Science, Names, Name, Magic

It is a love
hate relationship I have with the human race. I am an elitist, and I feel that my responsibility is to drag the human race along with me, that I will never pander to, or speak down to, or play the safe game.

Down, Elitist, Game, Hate, Race, Responsibility

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