Dan Harmon Quotes

Find your voice, shout it from the rooftops, and keep doing it until the people that are looking for you find you.

None of us are bad people. We float around and we run across each other and we learn about ourselves, and we make mistakes and we do great things. We hurt others, we hurt ourselves, we make others happy and we please ourselves. We can and should forgive ourselves and each other for that.

Storytelling comes naturally to humans, but since we live in an unnatural world, we sometimes need a little help doing what we'd naturally do.

Once upon a time, something happened, and it was better than something not happening. The end.

All [tv] shows are like cigarettes. You watch two, you have a higher chance of watching three. They're all addictive.

There are no normal people, there are just different kinds of weird, all of it is human and all humanity is better than everything inhuman. So I urge you to keep expressing yourself as honestly as you can, and know that the backpedals and second-guesses really aren't necessary - they don't hurt but they're wasting your time - because when you are truly human, as we all are, and when that is your honest message to anyone, you are beyond reproach, there is no way to screw it up.

The language we're exchanging, the fillings in our teeth, the pavement on the road outside, everywhere you look, for better or for worse, you're going to see evidence that accepting reality is not a human's tendency, and not what we're good at, and not, in my speculation, what God or Natural Selection hired us to do. We've been hired, by this universe, to dream, to aspire, to make things that weren't real real - and because that involves a lot of failure, we're damn good at doing that, too.

Don't be so hard on yourself, don't put pressure on yourself, life is just a chain of experiments and results, and you'll be perfect when you're dead.

I am a collaborator with everyone who agrees that I need to be in control. I happily collaborate with my loyalists.

I always try to use my medium, and if I get into a normal sitcom-writing contest with normal sitcom writers, I'm going to lose.

There are two kinds of people in this world. There are the people that will have you think that there are two kinds of people in this world, and there are the 'good; people. There is no good, there is no evil, there is just a war going on between the people that want you to think there's a war going on and the people that know there doesn't have to be one.

I feel like my life has always been the 'Hey Look at Me Show.' I'm not apologetic about that.

Pretty sad. Pretty lonely. But that's how I prefer it? I quess? I guess. It's a good guess. It's the best quess ever.

I surround myself with loyalists and people that I would die for. I just would rather die than make bad stuff for people because I'm a terrible dishwasher and a terrible lover and a terrible pet owner.

I'd just love to sit at home, wake up at 10AM, go to my own office with my dog, and write a movie. I don't know if I'm capable of doing that though. I think I'll just end up playing Minecraft and self-destructing.

I have to be really careful, because I have nothing but love for this entity known as "the customer" in entertainment. I would never, ever, ever put myself above them and say, "They don't get it, but it's funny, believe me." If they're not laughing, I'm doing my job wrong.

The public's perception of your show is what it is, and you don't get to complain how people perceive your show or talk about it.

I don't really have a lot of appropriate feelings for people on an individual basis, but I've always wanted to make people happy.

There's a fine line between a stream of consciousness and a babbling brook to nowhere.

You have to just look at it like Titanic: I know the ship sinks, but this is a love story

Yoda is interesting because, in addition to being wise, he is two feet tall, and a Yoda.

The concept of doing holiday episodes is a huge part of what's fantastic about doing TV. And viewers agree; you see the numbers going up for holiday episodes.

My cat brought me a toy. I thanked her and threw it. She sat there gave me a look that made me realize people and dogs are the crazy ones.

I think thoughts in my head bounce around in my skull and, if they keep bouncing around in my skull, they get worse and worse. When they come out of my mouth, they make people happy.

Audiences, as they get smaller, can intensify their relationship with the product, and so can the creative relationship with the people that you are serving. The good news is that, the more shows there are, the less the conglomerates have to gain by breaking the will of each individual creative.

Everyone knows that there are more people watching any given show than is being registered by the Nielsen system.

You have people saying two things that seem to contradict each other. One, that we live in a golden age of TV. The other, that television is dying. There's a reason for that. What we mean when we say it's dying is that it's already way past being fragmented into little chunks. Now it's being polarized into an aerosol mist.

Class clowns are never allowed to date anybody decent, but you don't get beaten up, you're invited to parties, and everybody likes you.

Garry Shandling has always been a pioneer of… meta entertainment. He's always been a defender of the creative right to use the frame as part of the painting.

I expect the audience to assume TV is stupid. I accept that it's my job to overcome it.

I'm from Wisconsin so I always feel a little nauseous about begging and trying to trick people into liking me.

Good writers hate bad writing but hating bad writing doesn’t make you good. Writing badly does.

I don't think it's going to be possible for the next generation of writers to tell stories without telling stories about telling stories.

I walk with God, and He protects me. That may very well be true. I don't mean to make that sound like a joke, in case He is in charge.

I wish people used wishes to modify themselves instead of others. Wish to be low maintenance. Wish to be autonomous, even.

Whereas the health of an individual depends on the ego's regular descent and return to and from the unconscious, a society's longevity depends on actual people journeying into the unknown and returning with ideas.

Wake up in the morning and say, 'I refuse to be a hack,' and see what happens by the end of the day.

What's important is passion, investment, and people laughing out loud as they work.

I became part of a little study group in community college and started caring about strangers. It gave me insight into what an asshole I was. I saw that I had only lived half of a life.

I am absolutely and inherently self-destructive in that I am always making sure I'm doing what I want to do.

Everything I do, in the middle of it, I lose all objectivity. The business of comedy is kind of ridiculous in that respect. Your job is to have a lot of fun in a jar, then sell it. There's something inherently illogical and impossible about that, but that being said, this is as good as it gets.

The most rewarding part of writing for TV is - a year ago I would have said it's just watching it on TV, it's just having been done with it and then collecting all that energy.

I love 30 Rock. It's one of my favorite shows. It's certainly the gold standard of comedy writing.

I was raised on NBC television.

I feel like I am a good person and a professional, very able leader of men.

I wish that television would stop selling our hatred of ourselves, and start seducing us with our love of ourselves.

Television is a populous, derivative, democratic medium.

If your ratings are high and there’s money being made, you’re allowed to be a perfectionist in television.

When you are in the 8 o'clock position, you can either be a cultural phenomenon, or you're endangered. It's a tough time slot.

It was never my direct intention to do anything particularly medium-defying.