"I'm a writer. What are you?" is also an edited version of Harlan Ellison's reply to the studio executive who dissed Harlan's concept for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. According to Ellison's version, he kept coming up with ideas and the suits would keep telling him "no, no - you've got to find something bigger." This continued until Ellison, not known for his great patience with stupidity, suggested that the Enterprise should sail through the Universe until they found the End of Everything - a wall bounding the Universe off from whatever else is out there. Upon blasting through this wall (with a lot of technobabble in the process), Kirk and Co. found God. Literally, as in He was hiding behind the wall.

At this point, Ellison was sure he had found a concept that would surely be, if not a very good science fiction story, at least close to what the studio people wanted. But after a few minutes of Deep Thought, the head suit allegedly told him, "no, no. Aren't you listening? We need something BIG!" At that point, Ellison gave him the finger and told him, "I'm a writer. I don't know what the fuck you think you are." And he walked out, never to be involved with Star Trek again. This was a Good Thing in the long run, as he later became a Creative Consultant for Babylon 5.