Dan Harmon Quotes

#1. Dan Harmon has this idea that characters on TV are allowed to talk about their favorite movies and TV shows and songs.

Gillian Jacobs

#2. 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.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#6. I'm always trying to gain and keep the audience's respect. I always want them to know that the show doesn't think they're stupid for watching.

Dan Harmon

#7. 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.

Dan Harmon

#8. 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.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#11. When you watch the sitcoms that were the big hits when I was growing up, TV was still just TV. It was allowed to just be TV. There were three channels that were competing for the whole family and you couldn't take your business elsewhere.

Dan Harmon

#12. 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.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#14. You'll be perfect when you're dead

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#16. With an animated show you can make a banana purple. You can put three hats on a cowboy. That would require several days of stitching, in live-action, that you wouldn't be able to afford. I mean, you can just do tons and tons and tons.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#18. 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.

Dan Harmon

#19. When I was a kid I never knew the difference between a sitcom and a drama. I just knew what my parents were watching and what was making them happy.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#21. 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.

Dan Harmon

#22. I care very much what the fans think. I'm starting to loosen my grip on caring about what critics say, because I think that critics care about what fans think of them, too, so there's a little bit of a refraction there, through that glass.

Dan Harmon

#23. It's so difficult to write good music. It's also really difficult to think about how to do it without violating the sanctity of the fourth wall.

Dan Harmon

#24. Humankind made these religions; that our brains are capable of doing that is neither something to take too seriously - because we also make poop, and we learned to flush that the fuck down the toilet - but it's also not something to totally disregard.

Dan Harmon

#25. My passion for 'Star Trek' is actually rooted in my love of television and the art of franchise and a premise designed to stick people together that have to figure out what to do.

Dan Harmon

#26. As humans, reality for us is largely based on other people's perceptions. If there's 20 bodies in your crawl space but you haven't been caught yet, you tell yourself you're still a birthday clown, and that's how you keep doing it.

Dan Harmon

#27. 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.

Dan Harmon

#28. You can't tell the audience - well, you can, but I don't like to tell the audience - that anything they're watching doesn't matter.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#30. I've never done well when I've been appreciated. I've done best when I'm targeted for death.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#32. TV tends to be like, if you're lucky, it's like Las Vegas. You can't get out. There's always another pitch meeting. They keep you on the casino floor. If I'm unlucky, if I'm lucky enough to be unlucky, I would love to write a movie.

Dan Harmon

#33. If somebody's cat happens to turn on the TV, my numbers can double. It's almost unrelated to what's really happening.

Dan Harmon

#34. Eight o'clock is hard no matter what network you're on because people have to make a decision to sit down and start watching TV. Every other time slot is a time slot that happens after someone's watching something else.

Dan Harmon

#35. 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.

Dan Harmon

#36. 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.

Dan Harmon

#37. TV in all its ugliness can be a beautiful thing.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#39. You don't give someone notes on their performance at a soup kitchen.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#41. Truthfully, I'm pretty stuck in the '80s.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#43. I really like performing for people.

Dan Harmon

#44. Maybe I am just a jerk.

Dan Harmon

#45. 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.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#47. 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.

Dan Harmon

#48. There's the same percentage of genius happening in both genders, but there's less women writing scripts and out there looking for the job.

Dan Harmon

#49. 'I want to touch people but if I touch them in real life they'll slap me.' That's what writing isit's a gross person getting a hug.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#51. Emotionally, shows like 'Cheers' and 'Taxi' were classic sitcoms when I was growing up.

Dan Harmon

#52. I was raised on NBC television.

Dan Harmon

#53. I was playing the game where I was going to be a great TV or film writer some day and there was nothing else that I thought about, including other people.

Dan Harmon

#54. Television is a populous, derivative, democratic medium.

Dan Harmon

#55. There are lots of emotions that go with the Fourth of July.

Dan Harmon

#56. 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.

Dan Harmon

#57. 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.

Dan Harmon

#58. I've discovered a new video game called owning my home.

Dan Harmon

#59. 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.

Dan Harmon

#60. I think that casting is probably the most important thing in television production.

Dan Harmon

#61. 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.

Dan Harmon

#62. People often ask me about what constitutes a nerd-friendly show - like, does it have to have sci-fi elements? But I think it's just a show that satisfies the secret craving we all have to be obsessed with something and not feel at all stupid about it.

Dan Harmon

#63. I think women are different, and I think having them in the room is crucial to a family comedy, ensemble comedy, television comedy, where half the eyeballs on your show are women.

Dan Harmon

#64. 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.

Dan Harmon

#65. I grew up on network sitcoms. If those are gone when I'm 65 years old, I would never forgive myself for not stepping up to that plate, as often as possible. I'm already bummed out that DVDs are dying off because, in my 20s, those were a huge thing.

Dan Harmon

#66. I say what's in my head, and I'm on honest ground. That is worth so much, and I think it does make my job, as a writer, easier. It makes it possible for me to give people stuff that they like.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#70. 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.

Dan Harmon

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

Dan Harmon

#72. Always hedge your bets. That's how I do it. I lay all my bets on what I can contribute, and suffer no illusions that I'm generating stuff by myself.

Dan Harmon

#73. 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.

Dan Harmon