Ellison Quotes & Sayings

When I do something, it is all about self-discovery. I want to learn and discover my own limits. — Larry Ellison

Astrid found the hem of his T-shirt and pulled it up over his head. She unbuckled his belt and shoved his jeans to the deck. She pushed him, gently but insistently, onto the bed. Then she undressed herself and stood in the faint light, looking down at him as he gazed up at her.
"You're giving me a reason to live," he said, half joking.
"I'm just recapturing the mood," she said, trying to make it sound light and sexy.
"You captured me a long time ago."
She climbed atop him. "We walk out of this together, Sam. Whatever it takes. You and me."
"You and me," he said.
She would not yet let him have her. "Whatever it takes," she insisted. "Say it."
"You and me," he said at last. "Whatever it takes."
"Swear it. — Michael Grant

Whence all this passion towards conformity anyway? Diversity is the word. Let man keep his many parts and you will have no tyrant states. Why, if they follow this conformity business, they'll end up by forcing me, an invisible man, to become white, which is not a color but the lack of one. Must I strive towards colorlessness? But seriously and without snobbery, think of what the world would lose if that should happen. America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. — Ralph Ellison

I intend to keep writing stories that piss people off, that tell the particular kind of truth I think is valid, that will make me feel more and more like a Writer of Stature, Which I honestly think I am, really, I mean it, I don't doubt it for a second dammit, so stop giggling! Stories that will make Dr Shedd sniff the air and make Lester smile as je thinks, The kid's coming along all right. — Harlan Ellison

What happens to a marriage? A persistent failure of kindness, triggered at first, at least in my case, by the inequities of raising children, the sacrifices that take a woman by surprise and that she expects to be matched by her mate but that biology ensures cannot be. Anything could set me off. Any innocuous habit or slight or oversight. The way your father left the lights of the house blazing, day and night. The way he could become so distracted at work that sometimes when I called, he'd put me on hold and forget me, only remembering again when I'd hung up and called back. The way he wore his pain so privately, whistling around the house after we'd had a spat, pretending nonchalance, protecting you and your sisters from discord, hiding behind his good nature, inadvertently — Jan Ellison

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear. — Ralph Ellison

You have to be able to slow down enough to switch your focus away from all the ways things could be better, to know how good they already are. — Katherine Ellison

People know that Mr. Ellison had a tough beginning, they are aware of a little boy who strived for acceptance, who wished to be like all the other little boys on the block, but found himself always falling short. Unlike majority of children who are carried in the arms and guidance of a father; that separate the dark skies to let you see the light of encouragement and a future glimpse of what they believe you can be. He rather grew up drawing in the sands his own image of what he thought he should be. People are determined to make him into a motivational speech, but remove the essence that still remains of the tragedy that brought everything into play. — Avra Amar Filion

I'm getting my stuff," he said, and bolted for the steps.
"You don't have to move out," Astrid called after him.
Sam stopped halfway up the steps. "Oh, I'm sorry. Is that the voice of the council telling me where I can go?"
"There's no point having a town council if you think you don't have to listen to it," Astrid said. She was using her patient voice, trying to calm the situation. "Sam, if you ignore us, no one will pay attention."
"Guess what, Astrid, they're already ignoring you. The only reason anyone pays any attention to you and the others is because they're scared of Edilio's soldiers." He thumped his chest. "And even more scared of me. — Michael Grant

You're ruining that book!" He pointed to the page I'd torn out. "That's a perfectly good book!" Holding his gaze, I reached down and ripped another page out. "I'm making roses." "Well, it's my book." "Sorry." I tore out another. — Kate Avery Ellison

Astrid and Taylor didn't like each other much. But Taylor was an extremely valuable person to have around. She had the ability to instantly transport herself from place to place. To "bounce," as she called it.
The enmity between them went back to Astrid's belief that Taylor had a crush of major proportions on Sam. No doubt Taylor would figure she had a golden opportunity now.
Not Sam's type, Astrid told herself. Taylor was pretty but a bit younger, and not nearly tough enough for Sam, who, despite what he might be thinking right now, liked strong, independent girls.
Brianna would be more Sam's style, probably. Or maybe Dekka, if she were straight.
Astrid shoved the list away irritably. Why was she torturing herself like this? Sam was a jerk. But he would come around. He would realize sooner or later that Astrid was right. He would apologize. And he'd move back in. — Michael Grant

The act of writing requires a constant plunging back into the shadow of the past where time hovers ghostlike. — Ralph Ellison

Mr. Ellison summed himself up by this sad but yet perfectly put statement. It shows his desire to express himself but can't find the words to do so; a man full of emotions and yet unable to share it in a verbal manner.... — Avra Amar Filion

I am drawn to roles that are strong, intelligent, and a little edgy. With Complications, I navigate my character Samantha Ellison through some really emotionally challenging times. — Beth Riesgraf

I don't believe in very many things, but art is definitely one of them. And at the top of that list, film and art influence our world's culture much more than many of us understand and fully respect. — Megan Ellison

Hope doesn't like to be beaten down, though, does it? Hope is what gets us through. Hope, and the prayer it wants to become. — Jan Ellison

Who knows but that, on the lower frequencies, I speak for you? — Ralph Ellison

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

Words are your business, boy. Not just the word. Words are everything. The key to the rock, the answer to the question. — Ralph Ellison

being born with only one kidney, occurring in roughly one in two thousand people. — Jan Ellison

It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man! — Ralph Ellison

Bill Gates is the pope of the personal computer industry. He decides who's going to build. — Larry Ellison

It was pleasure derived not from parental pride, but from gratitude. We had been blessed by the existence on this earth of our three particular children, and we had been assigned a blessed task in keeping you all safe in the world. — Jan Ellison

To say more is to say less. — Harlan Ellison

We have an ideal location for a couple of organic wineries on the island. But the reintroduction of commercial agriculture to Lanai is 100% dependent upon increasing the available water on the island. So we're going to use solar energy to convert seawater to fresh water. — Larry Ellison

It's my job for Oracle, the number two software company in the world; to become the number one software company in the world. My job is to build better than the competition, sell those products in the marketplace and eventually supplant Microsoft and move from being number two to number one. — Larry Ellison

The only way to get ahead is to find errors in conventional wisdom. — Larry Ellison

Modernization, socialization, and progression doesn't alter nor permit discarding the morals and the laws one should abide themselves too. — Avra Amar Filion

too much of your life will be lost, its meaning lost, unless you approach it as much through love as through hate. — Ralph Ellison

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. — Harlan Ellison

Brianna! Is Sam okay?" Astrid cried.
"No. Drake tore him up." She wanted to sound tough, but the sobs came bubbling up and overtook her. "Oh, God, Astrid, he's hurt so bad."
Astrid gasped and covered her hand with her mouth. Brianna put her arms around Astrid and sobbed into her hair.
"Is he going to die?" Astrid asked, voice wobbly.
"No, I don't think so," Brianna said. She stood back and wiped her tears. "I gave him something for the pain. But he's messed up, Astrid. — Michael Grant

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. — Harlan Ellison

You cannot innovate by copying. — Larry Ellison

Game-playing is more fun when it's virtual because you're more successful ... in reality, only one person gets to be LeBron. — Larry Ellison

They don't call it the Internet anymore, they call it cloud computing. I'm no longer resisting the name. Call it what you want. — Larry Ellison

I greatly admire GE, their utterly ruthlessly focused management, to get the cost out and get this integration done.' Okay, we may make a few mistakes along the way but we are not going to waste any time.' They make decisions; they are incredibly disciplined and focused. — Larry Ellison

Right now, 70 percent of the people don't have computers. And where they're needed most, people don't have them. We think this will enable anyone to own a computer. We're aiming at everybody who uses a computer as an information access device. The original idea was to build one cheaply enough to put one on every desk. — Larry Ellison

Love is always a top priority. — Kate Avery Ellison

Edilio is in hiding," Astrid snapped. "Edilio has to worry about being kicked out of the country. Our Edilio."
"He's got a volunteer lawyer - "
But Astrid wasn't done. "They should be putting up statues to Edilio. They should be naming schools after that boy - no, no, I'm not going to call him a boy. If he's not a man, then I'll never meet one."
Lana nodded approvingly, obviously enjoying and sharing in Astrid's outrage. — Michael Grant

Every generation has the obligation to free men's minds for a look at new worlds ... to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation. — Ellison Onizuka

I'm nothing. Nothing at all without writing. Without truth, my truth, the only truth I know, it's all a gambol in the pasture without rhythm or sense. — Harlan Ellison

Dearest Penelope,
I am a giant jerk. I don't mean to imply that I am abnormally sized human who happens to also be a jerk, but, instead, that I am a normal-sized human who happens to sometimes be an extra-large jerk. When you buy me an ugly holiday sweater next Christmas, it needn't be an extra-large man's sweater, but it should probably feature some much-despised ... figure that will serve to indicate to the world the immense degree of my jerkiness. What I'm really saying is ... I've thought more about it, and I'd like to be of help to you in your quest so that come Christmas you can just find me a basic ugly holiday sweater that has no other object but to be a basic ugly holiday sweater, and I can wear it the next time we beat God and the devil alike at trash can bowling.
Yours,
Flynt — Kate Ellison

Jobs put his hand on Ellison's left shoulder, pulled him so close that their noses almost touched, and said, Larry, this is why it's really important that I'm your friend. You don't need any more money. — Walter Isaacson

What about you? What do you do?" I needed to ask questions, draw him out. I needed to find out all the information I could. My voice sounded strong and smooth, but my hands were shaking. I put them in my lap so he couldn't see.
"I prey on innocent villagers and terrify their children," he said with a nasty smile. "And sometimes when I'm feeling really evil, I read books or paint. — Kate Avery Ellison

because what is commonly assumed to be past history is actually as much a part of the living present as William Faulkner insisted. — Ralph Ellison

I hate the PC, with a passion. — Larry Ellison

Maybe there is something when it all ends. Maybe there is memory, memory of the person you loved, when you lived. Maybe this is the white-light-tunnel deal, and I'm pressing toward it, and it's pressing back, until we become the same thing. — Kate Ellison

they could talk and agree with themselves, the world was nailed down, and they loved it. They received a feeling of security. — Ralph Ellison

Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion. — Harlan Ellison

I am so disturbed by kids who spend all day playing videogames. — Larry Ellison

Deep at the dark bottom of the melting pot, where the private is public and the public private, where black is white and white black, where the immoral becomes moral and the moral is anything that makes one feel good (or that one has the power to sustain), the white man's relish is apt to be the black man's gall. — Ralph Ellison

We think we're going to be especially strong in platform where we have our two platform brands: our database brand is the Oracle Database 12c, and our programming language brand is this thing called Java. — Larry Ellison

They were very much the same, each attempting to force his picture of reality upon me and neither giving a hoot in hell for how things looked to me. — Ralph Ellison

Above the decorous walking around me, sounds of footsteps leaving the verandas of far-flung buildings and moving toward the walks and over the walks to the asphalt drives lined with whitewashed stones, those cryptic messages for men and women, boys and girls heading quietly toward where the visitors waited, and we moving not in the mood of worship but of judgement; as though even here in the filtering dusk, here beneath the deep indigo sky, here, alive with looping swifts and darting moths, here in the hereness of the night not yet lighted by the moon that looms blood-red behind the chapel like a fallen sun, its radiance shedding not upon the here-dusk of twittering bats, nor on the there-night of cricket and whippoorwill, but focused short-rayed upon our place of convergence; and we drifting forward with rigid motions, limbs stiff and voices now silent, as though on exhibit even in the dark, and the moon a white man's bloodshot eye. — Ralph Ellison

It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow. — Ralph Ellison

They minute people fall in love they become liars. — Harlan Ellison

The machine masturbated and we had to take it or die. — Harlan Ellison

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. — Harlan Ellison

Not a day or an hour and sometimes not even a moment in advance did I have any idea what Patrick had in mind for me, or whether he had me in mind at all. This uncertainty lay like a sore under the surface of my skin, erupting again and again, then subsiding, but never healing. — Jan Ellison

Writing a novel is like going a great distance to take a small shit. — Harlan Ellison

Maui reminded me of San Diego: beautiful, but crowded. — Larry Ellison

And we passed through the cavern of rats.
And we passed through the path of boiling steam.
And we passed through the country of the blind.
And we passed through the slough of despond.
And we passed through the vale of tears.
And we came, finally, to the ice caverns. — Harlan Ellison

If the word has the potency to revive and make us free, it has also the power to blind, imprison, and destroy. — Ralph Ellison

They say the human body can lose 50 percent of its body parts and survive. But it depends on which parts, and which body. — Jan Ellison

I was no longer afraid. Not of important men, not of trustees and such; for knowing now that there was nothing which I could expect from them, there was no reason to be afraid. — Ralph Ellison

That voice was happy to throw a virtual catalogue of prior lapses in good judgment back in my face, as if it thought I needed reminding. — Tara Ellison

Think about a moment, a little centimeter of time you'd happily exist in forever, if time could be laid out along the spine of a ruler. Maybe it haunts you in that blue inch of half consciousness just before you're fully awake. — Kate Ellison

Our goal is very simply to become the desktop for e-businesses. — Larry Ellison

We've announced an Oracle Virtual Compute Appliance, a bunch of low-cost commodity servers running Linux, integrated in our case, with InfiniBand - connected with InfiniBand vs. the traditional Ethernet. — Larry Ellison

Hunter's dead," Taylor said without preamble. "It was these . . . these things. They came crawling up out of him and were eating him, oh God, I mean, it was like . . . I mean he was crying and Dekka prayed with him and he tried to fry his own brain just like he did with Harry only I guess it didn't work, I guess he couldn't do it, so Sam . . ." She swallowed. "Anyone have some water?"
"What about Sam?" Astrid demanded.
"He did it for him. Sam. I mean, he . . . Hunter was, you know . . . so Sam." She pantomimed raising her hands, like Sam, like he would do when using his power.
Astrid closed her eyes and crossed herself.
"Rest in peace," Edilio said and crossed himself as well.
"Sam burned the boy?" Howard asked. Then, bitterly sarcastic said, "Yeah, you all pray to Jesus. Because Jesus is really providing a lot of help here. Sounds to me like Sam was the one doing what had to be done. — Michael Grant

It's not always wise to assume that just because the surface of the world appears undisturbed, life is where you left it. — Jan Ellison

That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. — Ralph Ellison

The real name for 'science' is magic. — Harlan Ellison

You weren't going to tell us about Orsay?"
"I didn't say I - "
"You don't get to decide that, Sam. You're not the only one in charge anymore. Okay?"
Astrid had an icy sort of anger. A cold fury that manifested itself in tight lips and blazing eyes and short, carefully enunciated sentences.
"But it's okay for all of us to lie to everyone in Perdido Beach?" Sam shot back.
"We're trying to keep kids from killing themselves," Astrid said. "That's a little different from you just deciding not to tell the council that there's a crazy girl telling people to kill themselves."
"So not telling you something is a major sin, but lying to a couple of hundred people and trashing Orsay at the same time, that's fine? — Michael Grant

That is what a very Christian message is: to care about each other and to help those who need it the most. — Brooke Ellison

I suddenly recall the arpeggios of laughter lilting across the tender, springtime grass-gay-welling, far-floating, fluent, spontaneous, a bell-like feminine fluting, then suppressed; as though snuffed swiftly and irrevocably beneath the quiet solemnity of the vespered air now vibrant with somber chapel bells. — Ralph Ellison

I cannot pay attention to what people say about my work. For me, personally, I am just this shards-and-ashes human being, who really gets upset when someone says something bad about me. If it's true, I cop to it. If I have any good qualities, it's that. — Harlan Ellison

For a second
a second that lasts infinite seconds
he turns his face away from the wind to meet my eye. He smiles, he smiles without worrying about the gap in his teeth, he smiles in a way that I know: he is free. — Kate Ellison

Commercial rock 'n' roll music is a brutalization of the stream of contemporary Negro church music an obscene looting of a cultural expression. — Ralph Ellison

Love's young dream, alas is over
Yet my strains of love shall hover — Jan Ellison

Of all liars, the smoothest and most convincing is memory — Harlan Ellison

Hibernation is a covert preparation for a more overt action. — Ralph Ellison

I have run engineering since day one at Oracle, and I still run engineering. I hold meetings every week with the database team, the middle ware team, the applications team. I run engineering and I will do that until the board throws me out of there. — Larry Ellison

Dangerous Visions, which had, almost single-handedly, changed the way readers thought about science fiction. Since Ellison had been at least partially successful — Al Sarrantonio

(Awesome is the word one uses for Eleanor Roosevelt, Mt. Kilimanjaro, and pitching a no-hit no-run ballgame. Not available for the crappy cheese quesadilla you had this afternoon, nor for anybody who Dances with the Stars. With or without a wooden leg.) — Harlan Ellison

I believe people have to follow their dreams - I did. — Larry Ellison

Do you have anything from the geographic profile yet?" "No, it hasn't finished running. I was looking at the map myself, I think you're onto something. Problem with this software is it takes at least eight points to be accurate. So whatever it coughs out is going to be incomplete at best. I'd plan on working without it." "Right. — J.T. Ellison

I can't picture in my mind three hundred and sixty thousand dollars ... When I think of it, all I can see in my mind is a big nickel. — Harlan Ellison

Then in my mind's eye I see the bronze statue of the college Founder, the cold Father symbol, his hands outstretched in the breathtaking gesture of lifting a veil that flutters in hard, metallic folds above the face of a kneeling slave; and I am standing puzzled, unable to decide whether the veil is really being lifted, or lowered more firmly in place; whether I am witnessing a revelation or a more efficient blinding. — Ralph Ellison

They are stories I wrote because my friends are gone, a lot of them, and if you can't be angry about it, how the hell much did you care to begin with? — Harlan Ellison

Autonomy was shopped to us. We looked at the price and thought it was absurdly high. — Larry Ellison

I'd been so fascinated by the notion, that I'd forgotten to measure what it was bringing forth. I'd been asleep, dreaming. — Ralph Ellison

Fantasy could easily turn into obsession. — J.T. Ellison

When you're all alone out there, on the end of the typewriter, with each new story a new appraisal by the world of whether you can still get it up or not, arrogance and self-esteem and deep breathing are all you have. It often looks like egomania. I assure you it's the bold coverup of the absolutely terrified. — Harlan Ellison

All it takes to get along in this here man's town is a little shit, grit, and mother-wit. — Ralph Ellison

I'm an addict for underwear. — Jennifer Ellison

Any writer who pretends to a disaffection for recognition, I think they're being duplicitous. — Harlan Ellison

Sam Temple was taken by helicopter to a hospital in Los Angeles, where there were specialists there in burn injuries. He wasn't consulted: he was found on his knees, obviously in shock, extensively burned. EMTs took over.
Astrid Ellison was taken to a hospital in Santa Barbara, as was Diana Ladris.
Other kids were shared out among half a dozen hospitals. Some specialized in plastic surgery, others in the effects of starvation.
Over the next week all were seen by psychiatrists once their immediate physical injuries were addressed. Lots of psychiatrists. And when they weren't being seen by psychiatrists, they were being seen by FBI agents, and California Highway Patrol investigators, and lawyers from the district attorney's office.
The consensus seemed to be that a number of the Perdido survivors, as they were now known, would be prosecuted for crimes ranging from simple assault to murder.
First on that list was Sam Temple. — Michael Grant

God was so very far away."

(The Elusive Miss Ellison) — Carolyn Miller

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. — Harlan Ellison