Now he had form and substance. He had become a personality, something they had filtered out of the system many decades ago. But there it was, and the… - Harlan Ellison

In me own humble way, for the last few years, I’ve been trying to do an Ombudsman’s job in speculative fiction. I’ve been trying to tell a little truth to people who choose to believe rumor, gossip, non sequiturs and outright insanity, rather than dealing with reality.

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.

The explanations a writer gives himself for having written any particular book are more often not the real reasons why that book has been written. Honesty is not the issue. Understanding is. A man does not write one novel at a time or even one quatrain at a time. He is engaged in the long process of putting his whole life on paper. He is on a journey and he is reporting in: ‘This is where I think I am and this is what this place looks like today.’” The