Ellis Quotes

Just read this fabulous screenplay. A remake of Camus's The Stranger with Meursault as a bi break-dancing punk rocker. Randy showed it to me. I loved it. Randy thinks "basically unfilmable" and that filming an orange rolling around a parking lot for three hours would draw a bigger audience. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Getting up to dance to your own stuff looks pretty pretentious. And leaving the dancefloor when it comes on is just awkward. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

If I want to write a movie, I'll write a screenplay, but if I have an idea for a book, it's something that I think can only be done novelistically. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Jefferson appeared to his enemies as an American version of Candide; Hamilton as an American Machiavelli. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

I want something that'll give me the stamina of a young werewolf, the vision of a shaman, the thoughts of a serial killer and the gentleness of a hungry vampire bat. ~ Warren Ellis

I love working with Alexander Skarsgard. He brings such gravity to a scene. ~ Nelsan Ellis

Ellis squatted down next to her and put his hand gently on her shoulder. "Clairey ... " Her name sounded strange on his lips for the first time. ~ Tracy Winegar

When you go out and audition, you're going to hear a lot of 'No's.' As weird as it may sound, you almost have to love hearing 'no' because you're going to hear it way more than you hear 'yes'. ~ Jay Ellis

Philately is normally a boys' hobby but for some reason it was in vogue at my junior school. Between the ages of eight and ten I collected avidly. I'd pore over my Stanley Gibbons book, obsessively checking my collection's value. I always hoped I'd stumble across a really valuable one, a Penny Black or an Inverted Jenny, but it wasn't to be. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

It would take a human nine years to walk from the Earth to the moon. ~ Warren Ellis

OUT. CUT IT ALL OUT. Cut out my father. Cut out my mother. Cut out missing Ellis. Cut out the man in the underpass, cut out Fucking Frank, the men downstairs; the people on the street with too many people inside them, cut out hungry, and sad and tired, and being nobody and unpretty and unloved, just cut it all out, get smaller and smaller until I was nothing. ~ Kathleen Glasgow

Does the engineer ever predict the acceleration of a given body from a knowledge of its mass and of the forces acting upon it? Of course. Does the chemist ever measure the mass of an atom by measuring its acceleration in a given field of force? Yes. Does the physicist ever determine the strength of a field by measuring the acceleration of a known mass in that field? Certainly. Why then, should any one of these roles be singled out as the role of Newton's second law of motion? The fact is that it has a variety of roles. ~ Brian Ellis

Thinking rationally is often different from "positive thinking," in that it is a realistic assessment of the situation, with a view towards rectifying the problem if possible. ~ Albert Ellis

There are many good reasons for drinking, and one's just entered my head: If you don't drink when you're living, how the fuck can you drink when you're dead? ~ Warren Ellis

Optimism is the last resort of those in deep despair. There can't be any optimists in heaven. ~ Alice Thomas Ellis

We all have to hold each other accountable and point that behavior out to each other in a kind way. I guess what I'm saying is just having women behind the scenes isn't enough, we also have to be aware of what we're saying about ourselves. ~ Mary Elizabeth Ellis

Eugenics has always been the escape valve of single payer socialized medicine. Havelock Ellis was writing about them as one and the same prior to the fin-de-siecle. Culling out of control population growth and the economic drain of the incurably sick has always been a part of socialized medicine. ~ A.E. Samaan

All we marrieds have a marriage chuckle. A marriage chuckle is a fake laugh you bring out when your spouse does something dumb that you have to pretend is charming. My ~ Helen Ellis

The best way to get the sweet out of children and escape the bitter is to have them by proxy. ~ Ellis Peters

There is a hint of despair in the cry of 'I told you so,' an element of disappointment in the apparent satisfaction when idols turn out to have clay feet. The human race, when it thinks it has proved that no one is superior, is partly gratified and partly depressed. ~ Alice Thomas Ellis

I just did an arc with Warren Ellis - and no one else on the planet could get away with this, because I think this is like harassment? - But Warren felt like there was a depiction of Spider-Woman where it looked like her waist perhaps didn't contain any internal organs. And he suggested very quietly ... 'You should fix that, or else I will come to your house and nail your feet to the floor and set your house on fire.' ... And it totally got fixed! ~ Kelly Sue DeConnick

In the old days we used to get more referrals, because people had insurance that paid for therapy. Now they belong to HMOs, and we can only be affiliated with a few HMOs. ~ Albert Ellis

I'm a sucker for sad disco pop. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

The second great channel through which the impulse towards the control of procreation for the elevation of the race is entering into practical life is by the general adoption, by the educated - of methods for the prevention of conception except when conception is deliberately desired. ~ Havelock Ellis

It is only the great men who are truly obscene. If they had not dared to be obscene, they could never have dared to be great. ~ Havelock Ellis

Tallow walked into Bat and Scarly's office to find Bat slumped on a chair with his head on the workbench, turned away from the door, while Scarly softly sharpened on old straight razor on a worn strop, watching her partner intently.
"I don't think he needs his eyebrows, do you? I mean, they don't serve an immediate function or anything," she whispered. ~ Warren Ellis

Just embrace your hair! I really feel like I am not an advocate for people doing what I do. I'm an advocate for people discovering and finding what works for them. ~ Tracee Ellis Ross

Failure doesn't have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person. ~ Albert Ellis

The book is almost always better than the movie. You could have no better case in point than FROM HELL, Alan Moore's best graphic novel to date, brilliantly illustrated by Eddie Campbell. It's hard to describe just how much better the book is.
It's like, "If the movie was an episode of Battlestar Galactica with a guest appearance by the Smurfs and everyone spoke Dutch, the graphic novel is Citizen Kane with added sex scenes and music by your favourite ten bands and everyone in the world you ever hated dies at the end."
That's how much better it is. ~ Warren Ellis

In happiness or unhappiness, living is a duty, and must be done thoroughly. ~ Ellis Peters

The second you believe in hell, you're undermining everything good because a morality based in fear can only bring out the worst in people and never their best. ~ David Ellis Dickerson

Open the hood of a car and it will tell you something about the people who designed it, is just one of many phrases I'm tortured by. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Dess rennon vec lesha ackken ash ren lesha dess, kysm eshar. Fegakke ni laegoy." Treska checked her own little dictionary and then smiled as she translated. "You may look upon me as I look upon you, little bird. I am not shy. ~ Zoey Ellis

To have faith in Divine protection is good, but even beter if backed by the pratical assistance heaven has a right to expect from sensible mortals. ~ Ellis Peters

Nice girl. Wears too much makeup."
"Most chicks hate her."
"Most chicks wish they looked like her. And they wish they had her money and boyfriend."
I stop and regard her in disgust. "Burro Face?"
"Oh, please, Alex. Colin Adams is cute, he's the captain of the football team and Fairfield's hero. You're like Danny Zuko in Grease. You smoke, you're in a gang, and you've dated the hottest bad girls around. Brittany is like Sandy ... a Sandy who'll never show up to school in a black leather jacket with a ciggie hangin' from her mouth. Give up the fantasy. ~ Simone Elkeles

Ellis had slept through the entire thing. That, or he was dead, but I saw no reason to check. If he was dead, he'd still be dead in the morning. ~ Sara Gruen

What Mogo did was to take ultimate action to improve his quality of life. This is at the root of murder. We kill people to make our own lives better. We kill them because they are obstacles to our desires, because they make us unhappy, because they burden us, or because they keep calling us fucking wizards. Murder increases happiness. ~ Warren Ellis

You and many outstanding inventors and writers have striven for the ideal and have thereby helped yourself do remarkably well. REBT, therefore, does not oppose competition or striving for outstanding achievement. It advocates task-perfection, not self-perfection." "What does that mean?" "It means that you can try to be as good, or even as perfect, as you can - at any project or task. You can try to make it ideal. But you are not a good person if it is perfect. You are still a person who completed a perfect project, but never a good person for doing so." "How, then, do I become an incompetent or bad person?" "You don't! When you do incompetent or evil acts, you become a person who acted badly - never a bad person. ~ Albert Ellis

The near future? Pop will go down into the tube station at midnight and have sex. Lots of sex. And all those genres I listed earlier? Every single year will generate a list of new genres like that. Then every six months. Then every month. Then every week. Pop will fuck and mutate and survive. The new sounds will be everywhere, in too many places for us to notice them all at once. A million glorious bursts of incoherent noise. ~ Warren Ellis

It's when most of the guests have gone that the party really gets interesting - peering under the table and into the bath to see who's stayed and what shape they're in. It is then that those who are still conscious divulge things you had not known before: sometimes about themselves, sometimes about other people and sometimes about you. It does not necessarily make pleasant hearing but it is always fascinating. In the relaxed atmosphere, in the wake of the hubbub, they unwind and grow confidential - nay, indiscreet. If they are not already, they end up as your closest friends. ~ Alice Thomas Ellis

You should make an effort on stage because it's a performance. The stage should be glittery and camp, but I don't go down the shops in full stage gear. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Like the classic it has become, the Farewell Address has demonstrated the capacity to assume different shapes in different eras, to change color, if you will, in varying shades of light. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

The experience of both acting and producing has been wonderful. It certainly has created a full plate. But it is very exciting and rewarding to have creative input on the show. 'Reed' is about love and family and for me, playing a hand in shaping it has been deeply gratifying. ~ Tracee Ellis Ross

A great numb feeling washes over me as I let go of the past and look forward to the future. Pretend to be a vampire. I don't really need to pretend, because it's who I am, an emotional vampire. I've just come to expect it. Vampires are real. That I was born this way. That I feed off of other people's real emotions. Search for this night's prey. Who will it be? ~ Bret Easton Ellis

I lead Paco through the house. We pass Shelley in the family room looking at some magazine. "Shelley, this is Paco. He's Alex's friend. Paco, this is my sister, Shelley."
At the mention of Alex's name, Shelley gives a happy squeal.
"Hey, Shelley," Paco says.
Shelley smiles wide.
"Shell-bell, I need you to do me a favor." Shelley bobs her head in response as I whisper, "I need you to keep Mom occupied while I talk to Paco."
Shelley grins, and I know my sister will come through for me. ~ Simone Elkeles

And though it has been in no way a romantic evening, she embraces me and this time emanates a warmth I'm not familiar with. I am so used to imagining everything happening the way it occurs in movies, visualizing things falling somehow into the shape of events on a screen, that I almost hear the swelling of an orchestra, can almost hallucinate the camera panning low around us, fireworks bursting in slow motion overhead, the seventy-millimeter image of her lips parting and the subsequent murmur of "I want you" in Dolby sound. But my embrace is frozen and I realize, at first distantly and they with greater clarity, that the havoc raging inside me is gradually subsiding and she is kissing me on the mouth and this jars me back into some kind of reality and I lightly push her away. She glances up at me fearfully.
"Listen, I've got to go," I say, checking my Rolex. "I don't want to miss… Stupid Pet Tricks. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Dreams are real as long as they last. Can we say more of life? ~ Havelock Ellis

Did Ellis hurt like I did my first time? I hoped not. I tried desperately to prep him as best I could, but there was still no guarantee that today he wouldn't feel the repercussions, despite my careful planning. To his advantage, and to the detriment of my ego, I was on the low side of average. ~ Wade Kelly

Life goes not in a straight line, lad, but in a circle. The first half we spend venturing as far as the world's end from home and kin and stillness, and the latter half brings us back, by roundabout ways but surely, to that state from which we set out. ~ Ellis Peters

There was a song i heard when i was in los angeles by a local group. the song was called "los angeles" and the words and images were so harsh and bitter that the song would reverberate in my mind for days. the images, i later found out, were personal and no one i knew shared them. the images i had were of people being driven mad by living in the city. images of parents who were so hungry and unfulfilled that they ate their own children. images of people, teenagers my own age, looking up from the asphalt and being blinded by the sun. these images stayed with me even after i left the city. images so violent and malicious that they seemed to be my only point of reference for a long time afterwards. after i left. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

On the threshold of the moral world we meet the idea of Freedom, 'one of the weightiest concepts man has ever formed,' once a dogma, in the course of time a hypothesis, now in the eyes of many a fiction, yet we cannot do without it, even although we may be firmly convinced that our acts are determined by laws that cannot be broken. ~ Havelock Ellis

Meet every man as you find him, for we're all made the same under habit, robe or rags. Some better made than others, and some better cared for, but on the same pattern, all. ~ Ellis Peters

The fledgling and ragtag American army turned its state into a semi-plausible advantage, encouraging enlistees to wear their own "hunting shirts" to build on the reputation of frontier marksmen. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

In the long run, you see, none of that matters.
I've seen Heaven, Dowling. And it's not a place where you exercise any power.
In the long run, we are all three-dimensional side-effects of a two-dimensional universe existing in a multidimensional stack. ~ Warren Ellis

You learn that, when your children are all right, everything is right in the world. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Spirit and soul is horseshit of the worst sort. Obviously there are no fairies, no Santa Clauses, no spirits. What there is, is human goals and purposes as noted by sane existentialists. But a lot of transcendentalists are utter screwballs. ~ Albert Ellis

Akthent on thee latht thyllable. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

So I'd better stop my whining and help myself cope better with even the worst Adversities. ~ Albert Ellis

There's something so sweet about being on your yoga mat, whether that be at Jivamukti, Dharma Mittra, or in my living room. ~ Stephanie Ellis

A sublime faith in human imbecility has seldom led those who cherish it astray. ~ Havelock Ellis

This is laid down with a groove funkier and blacker than anything Prince of Michael Jackson
or any other black artist of the recent years for that matter
has come up with. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

It's funny how intimate it feels to get a text. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

I'm also staring at the fortune cookie. Its got a lot of blood on it and I shrug and say, as jovially as I can, Oh, you know me. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Stephen King says that if you forget an idea, then it can't have been any good. He means he, not you. You are not Stephen King. Do not attempt to emulate Stephen King at home. ~ Warren Ellis

Everything looked the same every morning: all in order and just the same. It was in the nights that the difference held sway and there was no comfort for lost and lonely things. ~ Alice Thomas Ellis

In terms of influence, my style icons have been a mixture of Julie Andrews and Olivia Newton-John. When I was little I used to watch 'Grease,' 'Mary Poppins' and 'The Sound of Music' a lot. If you put all those things together you do kind of get my outfits. A slightly tarty nanny in a second-hand outfit. That is pretty much what I wear. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Every dance you know is an anti-grammar of another dance you do not know. ~ Thomas Sayers Ellis

Of course I don't care if you're bleeding! I'm fucking autistic! ~ Warren Ellis

Men drunk with ambition and power do not ground their weapons, nor stop to recognise the fellow-humanity of those they are about to slay. - Pg. 2 ~ Ellis Peters

Mister Sun wondered if he really believed it was true that the heart is just a pump. ~ Warren Ellis

I've never written an autobiographical novel in my life. I've never touched upon my life. I've never written a single scene that I can say took place. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

If you have a lover, I'm sure he would not wish to hear how you moan for me, how you plead for my cock, how you rotate those hips to keep me inside you, how your slick begins to drip just hearing me unbuckling my pants." Her shoulders stiffened, her chest rising rapidly as he stood over her. "If you have a lover, I can assure you, he will no longer satisfy you. Not like I do. ~ Zoey Ellis

Well, I think adultery is a filthy habit,' said Rose, 'like using someone else's toothbrush. ~ Alice Thomas Ellis

I love so much you see, you're even in my dreams
I can hear baby, I can hear you calling me
I'm so in love with you, all I ever want to do is
Thank you baby, thank you baby.. ~ Alton Ellis

I break into a sweat when I find a Sharpie cap, but not the pen. ~ Helen Ellis

There's so many singers, you watch them and a lot of it is waving around. You don't get this feeling that they're really thinking about what they're saying. ~ Sophie Ellis-Bextor

Things
changing, failing apart, fading, another year, a few more
moves, a hard person who doesn't give a fuck, a boredom so
monumental it humbles, arrangements so fleeting made by
people you don't even know that it requires you to lose any
sense of reality you might have once acquired, expectations
so unreasonable you become superstitious about ever
matching them. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Unless you're the director on the movie, or putting up the money for the movie, you really don't have a lot of control. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Certainly, in the spring of 2013 I hadn't fucked up as many gay lives as Bill Clinton had. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Adele is so great! I love "Someone Like You"! Everyone is just raving about it. What's so nice about it - and a lot of her songs - is it just takes it back to basics. ~ Kerry Ellis

I actually started my career interning at Perry Ellis and got to work with Marc Jacobs. ~ Nina Garcia

You have games on there?" he asks.
"Yeah," I answer for her. "She's become a checkers fanatic. Shelley, show him how it works."
While Shelley slowly taps the screen with her knuckles, Alex watches, seemingly fascinated.
When the checkers screen comes up, Shelley nudges Alex's hand.
"You go first," he says.
She shakes her head.
"She wants you to go first," I tell him.
"Cool." He taps the screen.
I watch, getting all mushy inside, as this tough guy plays quietly with my big sister.
"Do you mind if I make a snack for her?" I say, desperate to leave the room.
"Nah, go ahead," he says, his concentration on the game.
"You don't have to let her win," I say before leaving. "She can hold her own in checkers."
"Uh, thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am tryin' to win," Alex says. He has a genuine grin on his face, without trying to act cocky or cool. ~ Simone Elkeles

I hope to die in the saddle seat. ~ Albert Ellis

History is sinking and only a very few seem dimly aware that things are getting bad. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

I get people to truly accept themselves unconditionally, whether or not their therapist or anyone loves them. ~ Albert Ellis

Why do I sense hostility on your part, Patrick?" she asks softly, then sips her wine.
"Maybe because I'm hostile," I spit out. "Maybe because you sense this. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

No, really Patrick. What do you want me to call you?"

King, I'm thinking. King, Evelyn. I want you to call me King. But I don't say this. "Evelyn. I don't want you to call me anything. I don't think we should see each other anymore."

"But your friends are my friends. My friends are your friends. I don't think it would work," she says, and then, staring at a spot above my mouth, "You have a tiny fleck on the top of your lip. Use your napkin."

Exasperated, I brush the fleck away. "Listen, I, know that your friends are my friends and vice versa. I've thought about that." After a pause I say, breathing in, "You can have them."

Finally she looks at me, confused, and murmurs, "You're really serious, aren't you?"

"Yes", I say, "I am."

"But... what about us? What about the past?" she asks blankly.

"The past isn't real. It's just a dream," I say. "Don't mention the past."

She narrows her eyes with suspicion. "Do you have something against me, Patrick?" And then the hardness in her face changes instantaneously to expectation, maybe hope.

"Evelyn," I sigh. "I'm sorry. You're just... not terribly important... to me. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

Are they also …?'
'They're asexual too.'
'Wow.' Ellis grinned. 'Well, that makes three of us.'
'There are more,' I said. 'A lot more. Out there. In the world.'
'Really?'
'Yeah.' Ellis stared out of the window, smiling. 'That would be nice. If there were lots out there. ~ Alice Oseman

In the early days of Christianity the exercise of chastity was frequently combined with a close and romantic intimacy of affection between the sexes which shocked austere moralists. ~ Havelock Ellis

I find when death comes, it is usually a woman that is called for. ~ Anne Ellis

Every book for me is an exorcism in some way or another, working through my feelings at the time. ~ Bret Easton Ellis

The old adage applied: if God were in the details, Colonel Washington would have been there to greet him upon arrival. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

P. 274 ... his trademark decision to surrender power as commander in chief and then president, was not ... a sign that he had conquered his ambitions, but rather that he fully realized that all ambitions were inherently insatiable and unconquerable. He knew himself well enough to resist the illusion that he transcended human nature. Unlike Julius Caesar and Oliver Cromwell before him, and Napoleon, Lenin, and Mao after him, he understood that the greater glory resided in posterity's judgment. If you aspire to live forever in the memory of future generations, you must demonstrate the ultimate self-confidence to leave the final judgment to them. And he did. ~ Joseph J. Ellis

But I am not a monster because I kill. Killing is easy. I am a monster because I accept the hard choices. (Frank Moses) ~ Warren Ellis

...evil is not always opposed to religion. Indeed, when evil appropriates the ideals and institutions of religion, the results are far more damaging than when individuals carry out self-consciously evil acts. ~ Bill Ellis

Forget about that and kiss me," I say.
I weave my hands in her hair. She wraps her arms around my neck as I trace the valley between her lips with my tongue. Parting her lips, I deepen the kiss. It's like a tango, first moving slow and rhythmic and then, when we're both panting and our tongues collide, the kiss turns into a hot, fast dance I never want to end. Carmen's kisses may have been hot, but Brittany's are more sensual, sexy, and extremely addictive.
We're still in the car, but it's cramped and the front seats don't give us enough room. Before I know it, we've moved to the backseat. Still not ideal, but I hardly notice.
I'm so getting into her moans and kisses and hands in my hair. And the smell of vanilla cookies. I'm not going to push her too far tonight. But without thinking, my hand slowly moves up her bare thigh.
"It feels so good," she says breathlessly.
I lean her back while my hands explore on their own. My lips caress the hollow of her neck as I ease down the strap to her dress and bra. In response, she unbuttons my shirt. When it's open, her fingers roam over my chest and shoulders, searing my skin.
"You're . . . perfect," she pants.
Right now I'm not gonna argue with her. Moving lower, my tongue follows a path down to her silky skin exposed to the night air. She grabs the back of my hair, urging me on. She tastes so damn good. Too good. !Caramelo!
I pull away a few inches and capture her gaze with mine, those shining ~ Simone Elkeles

Cleverness and wisdom are not inevitable yoke-fellows. ~ Ellis Peters

I partnered you with Jim all those years ago because you were complimentary kinds of crazy. You kept each other in check. I need you to not crawl back inside your own skull and watch the world with binoculars from deep cover. ~ Warren Ellis

Did you know I was born in a Holiday Inn. ~ Bret Easton Ellis