Harlan Ellison · 48 pages
Rating: (2.2K votes)
“Why let them order you about? Why let them tell you to hurry and scurry like ants or maggots? Take your time! Saunter a while! Enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the breeze, let life carry you at your own pace! Don't be slaves of time, it's a helluva way to die, slowly, by degrees...down with the Ticktockman!”
― Harlan Ellison, quote from "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
“Jelly beans! Millions and billions of purples and yellows and greens and licorice and grape and raspberry and mint and round and smooth and crunchy outside and soft-mealy inside and sugary and bouncing jouncing tumbling clittering clattering skittering fell on the heads and shoulders and hardhats and carapaces of the Timkin works, tinkling on the slidewalk and bouncing away and rolling about underfoot and filling the sky on their way down with all the colors of joy and childhood and holidays, coming down in a steady rain, a solid wash, a torrent of color and sweetness out of the sky from above, and entering a universe of sanity and metronomic order with quite-mad coocoo newness. Jelly beans!”
― Harlan Ellison, quote from "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
“And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes. And so it goes goes goes goes goes tick tock tick tock tick tock and one day we no longer let time serve us, we serve time and we are slaves of the schedule, worshipers of the sun's passing, bound into a life predicated on restrictions because the system will not function if we don't keep the schedule tight.”
― Harlan Ellison, quote from "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
“Don't come back till you have him!" the Ticktockman said, very quietly, very sincerely, extremely dangerously.
They used dogs. They used probes. They used cardioplate crossoffs. They used teepers. They used bribery. They used stiktytes. They used intimidation. They used torment. They used torture. They used finks. They used cops. They used search&seizure. They used fallaron. They used betterment incentive. They used fingerprints. They used the Bertillon system. They used cunning. They used guile. They used treachery. They used Raoul Mitgong, but he didn't help much. They used applied physics. They used techniques of criminology.
And what the hell: they caught him.”
― Harlan Ellison, quote from "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
“You're a nonconformist.”
“That didn’t used to be a felony.”
“It is now. Live in the world around you.”
― Harlan Ellison, quote from "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
“Master Timekeeper: Not everyone thinks so. Most people enjoy order.
Harlequin: I don't, and most of the people I know don't."
Master Timekeeper: That's not true. How do you think we caught you?
Harlequin: I'm not interested.
Master Timekeeper: A girl named pretty Alice told us who you were.
Harlequin: That's a lie.
Master Timekeeper: It's true. You unnerve her. She wants to belong, she wants to conform,
I'm going to turn you off.”
― Harlan Ellison, quote from "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman
“Jared’s lips were suddenly at my ear. “The only vampire who’ll be manhandling you tonight is me.”
“If I let you.”
“You get such satisfaction out of teasing me, don’t you?”
“I still maintain that you like it.”
― Suzanne Wright, quote from Here Be Sexist Vampires
“After all, words are what remain when all the deeds have been done. Words can shatter faith; start a war; change the course of history. A story can make your heart beat faster; topple walls; scale mountains - hey, a story can even raise the dead. And that's why the King of Stories ended up being the King of the gods; because writing history and making history are only the breadth of a page apart.”
― Joanne Harris, quote from The Gospel of Loki
“‹‹Si bien en el presente el pasado ya ha sucedido, es preciso extremar la prudencia para no poner en peligro lo presente a través de lo pasado al hacerlo presente>>”
― Kerstin Gier, quote from Emerald Green
“Librarians seemed to have a sixth sense for noticing when students were doing things they weren't supposed to.”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Rithmatist
“Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength.”
― Sabaa Tahir, quote from A Torch Against the Night
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.