Excellence is its own master, owes no allegiance, bows its head to no regimen. It exists pure and whole like the silver face of the moon. Untouchable, unreachable, exquisite. But frustrating because it reminds us of how much mediocrity we put up with, just to get through the week.

— Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison Quotes

There are certain injustices in this life you’ve got to do something about. You can’t just say that you can’t fight it, or it’s too much trouble, or that you don’t have the time or the effort, or that you can’t win. Forget all that. Fight them all!

— Harlan Ellison

Style, like taste, is resistant to lucid definition; however, both, as living things should be, are subject to constant change.

— Harlan Ellison

Too many of our insanities are tolerated because they are harmless on an individual level – but multiply them by a millionfold and you have a nation that is culturally sick. These things stem from each individual’s conception of himself – which he arbitrarily assumes to be the nature of the world as well. These conceptions are haphazardly picked up during youth – along with all of the other opinions, neuroses, hangups and etceteras common to the human animal.

— Harlan Ellison

He withdrew, murmuring to hell with you. And added, brightly, but then you’re there, aren’t you. The.

— Harlan Ellison

Heaven is what you mix all the days of your life, but you call it dreams. You have one chance to buy your Heaven with all the intents and ethics of your life. That is why everyone considers Heaven such a lovely place. Because it is dreams, special dreams, in which you exist. What you have to do is live up to them.

— Harlan Ellison

I know that my true friend will appear after my death, and my sweetheart died before I was born.

— Harlan Ellison

The solitary creator, dreaming his or her dream, unaided, seems to me to be the only artist we can trust.

— Harlan Ellison

Ellison’s Theorem: the further right your position, the less telling your satire. A corollary of which is that you can’t lampoon anywhere near where you stand, because you’d annihilate your own troops.

— Harlan Ellison

I offer you the words of the Polish poet Edward Yashinsky, who said, “Fear not your enemies, for they can only kill you; fear not your friends, for they can only betray you. Fear only the indifferent, who permit the killers and betrayers to walk safely on the earth.

— Harlan Ellison

Story after story has marched the same old WASP engineer paperdoll through the same old story lines, most of which were very good when they were used by H. G. Wells, but which are now showing signs of wear.

— Harlan Ellison

Man denkt sich nicht mit der psychischen Brechstange in jemanden hinein.

— Harlan Ellison

The problem isn’t what to say about the incredible Ursula Le Guin, it’s where to start.

— Harlan Ellison

The English are slightly more civilized than anyone else has yet been. Also England is a good country for introverts; they have a place in society for the introvert, which the United States has not.

— Harlan Ellison

No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.” S. J. LEC.

— Harlan Ellison

Humor should not be dissected because nothing lives through dissection.

— Harlan Ellison

If there was a sweet Jesus and if there was a God, the God was AM.

— Harlan Ellison

A writer who writes more than he reads is an amateur.

— Harlan Ellison

Or, as Goethe summed it: “Know thyself? If I knew myself, I’d run away.

— Harlan Ellison

There is only one real evil in the world: mediocrity.

— Harlan Ellison

Excellence is its own master, owes no allegiance, bows its head to no regimen. It exists pure and whole like the silver face of the moon. Untouchable, unreachable, exquisite. But frustrating because it reminds us of how much mediocrity we put up with, just to get through the week.

— Harlan Ellison
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