“When they dug the body out of the alley, it made even the hardened construction workers and emergency squad cops ill. Not one bone was left unbroken. The very flesh seemed to have been masticated as if by a nation of cannibal dogs. Even so, the three inured excavators who finally used winding sheets and shovels to bring the shapeless mess up from its five-foot grave agreed that it was incredible, totally past belief, that the head and face were untouched.
And they all agreed that the expression on the face was not one of happiness. There were many possible explanations for that expression, but no one would have said terror, for it was not terror. They would not have said helplessness, for it was not that, either. They might have settled on a pathetic sense of loss, had their sensibilities run that deep, but none of them would have felt that the expression said, with great finality: a man may truly live in his dreams, his noblest dreams, but only, only if he is worthy of those dreams.”
This last line has often been paraphrased: "You can live in your dreams, but only if you are worthy of them."
Delusion for a Dragon Slayer (1966)
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Harlan Ellison 79
American writer 1934–2018Related quotes

To the Peel Commission (1937) on a Jewish Homeland in Palestine.
The 1930s
Context: I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.

“Anyhow, even if they agreed to lead us, I felt uneasy as where we would wind up going.”
Story notes for The Golden Man (1953), in the short story anthology The Golden Man (1980)
Context: Here I am saying that mutants are dangerous to us ordinaries, a view which John W. Campbell, Jr. deplored. We were supposed to view them as our leaders. But I always felt uneasy as to how they would view us. I mean, maybe they wouldn't want to lead us. Maybe from their superevolved lofty level we wouldn't seem worth leading. Anyhow, even if they agreed to lead us, I felt uneasy as where we would wind up going. It might have something to do with buildings marked SHOWERS but which really weren't.


The Confessions of a Lost Dog https://books.google.it/books?id=uNgBAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA3 (London: Griffith & Farran, 1867), pp. 15-16.

Quoted in "The Eichmann Kommandos" - Page 157 - by Michael Angelo Musmanno - 1961.

Book I, Note I, p. 18
Les confidences (1849)
Breaking Down the Wall of Silence (Abbruch der Schweigemauer) (1990)

The Jatka (From the Attainment of the Buddhaship. Also is in the Nirvana Sutta.)
Unclassified