“And my mother said—and I remember this as if it were yesterday—my mother with a washcloth in her hand and me standing at the sink, she said, "You must have said something to get them angry."”

— Harlan Ellison

And it was an icicle just jammed into my chest. That my own mother—and with cause! It was not as if I was the greatest kid in the world. I was a troublemaker! I was a brat! I was a big-mouth pain in the ass! But that my own mother would not understand—at that moment I had what, now at age seventy-two I understand, was an enormous epiphany, which is: I really cannot support it, I cannot bear it, when people laugh at me. <br class="br">Source: Dreams with Sharp Teeth (2008) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1018887/ (documentary), at about 28:10. <br class="br">Context: About being beaten up by bullies as a child.

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Harlan Ellison79

American writer 1934–2018

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