Skip to content

No God is sane. How could it be? To be a Man is so much less taxing, and most men are mad. Consider the God. How much more deranged the Gods must be, merely to exist. There can be no doubt: consider the universe and the patterns without reason upon which it is run. God is mad. The God of Music is mad. The Timegod is punctual, but he is mad. And the Machine God is mad. He has made the bomb and the pill and the missile and the acid and the electric chair and the laser and the embalming fluid and the thalidomide baby in his own image.

— Harlan Ellison Over the Edge (1970)

Another quote →

More quotes by Harlan Ellison

It is my lot to wake with anger every morning, to lie down at night even angrier.

Shatterday (1980)

This is a test. Take notes. This will count as 3/4 of your final grade.

Deathbird Stories (1975)

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

Deathbird Stories (1975)

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

There’s only one real evil in the world: mediocrity.

All Harlan Ellison quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Harlan Ellison (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.