Literary Birthday – 16 February – Warren Ellis

Happy Birthday, Warren Ellis, born 16 February 1968.

Quotes

Writer’s block? I’ve heard of this. This is when a writer cannot write, yes? Then that person isn’t a writer anymore. I’m sorry, but the job is getting up in the fucking morning and writing for a living.
Writing is basically a job for people who like punching themselves in the face, I’m pretty sure.
Be authentic to your dreams. Be authentic to your own idea about yourself. Grind away at your own minds and bodies until you become your own invention. Be Mad Scientists.
You’re miserable, edgy, and tired. You’re in the perfect mood for journalism.
Dance like you’re stamping on a human face forever, love like you’ve been in a serious car crash that minced the front of your brain, stab like no one can arrest you, and live like there’s no such thing as God.
I’ve always moved between media. Some ideas just work better in some media than others.
If you write any kind of fiction about America, you immediately have to start doing some research about guns, so in some ways, Gun Machine is just the culmination of 20 years of reading about guns.
If contemporary literary fiction doesn’t read a bit like science fiction then it’s probably not all that contemporary, is it?
There’s one hole in every revolution, large or small. And it’s one word long— PEOPLE. No matter how big the idea they all stand under, people are small and weak and cheap and frightened. It’s people that kill every revolution.
Tradition – one of those words conservative people use as a shortcut to thinking.
Journalism is just a gun. It’s only got one bullet in it, but if you aim right, that’s all you need. Aim it right, and you can blow a kneecap off the world.
Don’t live with writers. Writers are bastards.

Warren Ellis is an English author of comics, novels, video games, and television. He is the author of Gun Machine, Shivering Sands, and Crooked Little Vein. He is well known for his socio-cultural commentary, both through his online presence and through his writing, which includes themes about nanotechnology, cryonics, mind transfer, and human enhancement.

Must-read: Warren Ellis’s 3 Questions To Find A Story

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