From the Land of Fear Quotes

“A smartass once accused me of being subtle. I decked him with a short right over the heart and an elbow in the trachea.”
― Harlan Ellison, From the Land of Fear

“Soldiering is a skill to which I feel no sane man should aspire. It is the professional gunslinging of a world too chickenshit to drive in the knives with individual combat. War becomes a stupidity, a dumb thing, no matter what the rationale, no matter what the color of the banner or the name of the ideology. True, it is the most exclamatory of all points that can be made, but when it settles, the dust covers victor and vanquished alike: that’s a cliche already, they’ve made bad movies about it. But the argument holds.”
― Harlan Ellison, From the Land of Fear

“Self-analysis grows chancy, but each man decides at various times in his life who he is, where he’s going, what he stands for. Perhaps not in so many words, but in a kind of subconscious codification that enables him to stop the action at any given point and say, “This is good, this is evil; this is right, this is wrong.” We call it a sense of morality or ethic. We call it a conscience. We call it maturity or a relation to the universe. But whatever it is—even if it goes by the name of love—it helps a man know what his potentialities may be.”
― Harlan Ellison, From the Land of Fear

“My fingertips are covered with the scars of people I’ve touched. The flesh remembers those touches. Sometimes I feel as though I am wearing heavy woolen gloves, so thick are the memories of all those touches. It seems to insulate me, to separate me from mankind. I very often refrain from washing my hands for days and days, just to preserve whatever layers of touches might be washed away by the soap.

“Faces and voices and smells of people I’ve known have passed away, but still my hands carry the records with them. Layer after layer of the laying-on of hands. Is that altogether sane? I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it for a very long time, when I have the time.

“If I ever have the time.”
― Harlan Ellison, From the Land of Fear