Authors — Quotes

Neil Gaiman Quotes: 114

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.
Coraline
Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.
The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're doing something.
Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections
May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes...you're Doing Something.
Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.
Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.
The Sandman, Vol. 5: A Game of You
People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.
What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.
American Gods
Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.
Life is always going to be stranger than fiction, because fiction has to be convincing, and life doesn't.
There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.
Smoke and Mirrors
She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.
Stardust
Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.
Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.
She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood. She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins.
Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.
The Sandman, Vol. 3: Dream Country
I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard.
You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime.
The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes
When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better. "It's all right"we whisper, "I'm here, I love you."and we lie: "I'll never leave you."For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad.
Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days
In a perfect world, you could fuck people without giving them a piece of your heart. And every glittering kiss and every touch of flesh is another shard of heart you’ll never see again.
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Stories you read when you're the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you'll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.
M Is for Magic
Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.
Coraline
Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.
The Graveyard Book
It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Picking five favorite books is like picking the five body parts you'd most like not to lose.
Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it's much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!
I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Hey,"said Shadow. "Huginn or Muninn, or whoever you are."The bird turned, head tipped, suspiciously, on one side, and it stared at him with bright eyes."Say 'Nevermore,'"said Shadow."Fuck you,"said the raven.
American Gods
Books were safer than other people anyway.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
A book is a dream that you hold in your hands."(As quoted on BookRiot, June 18, 2013)
Then, one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...you give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.
The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones
You've a good heart. Sometimes that's enough to see you safe wherever you go. But mostly, it's not.
Neverwhere
Sleep my little baby-ohSleep until you wakenWhen you wake you'll see the worldIf I'm not mistaken...Kiss a loverDance a measure,Find your nameAnd buried treasure...Face your lifeIts pain, Its pleasure,Leave no path untaken.
The Graveyard Book
If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.
The Graveyard Book
I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
When writing a novel, that's pretty much entirely what life turns into: 'House burned down. Car stolen. Cat exploded. Did 1500 easy words, so all in all it was a pretty good day.
You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you can change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished.
The Graveyard Book
Do not lose hope — what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story. (from 'Instructions')
Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.
Anansi Boys
How do I know you'll keep your word?"asked Coraline."I swear it,"said the other mother. "I swear it on my own mother's grave." "Does she have a grave?"asked Coraline."Oh yes,"said the other mother. "I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.
Coraline
I am the most miserable person who ever lived,"he said... "You are young, and in love,"said Primus. "Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.
Stardust
Name the different kinds of people,’ said Miss Lupescu. ‘Now.’Bod thought for a moment. ‘The living,’ he said. ‘Er. The dead.’ He stopped. Then, ‘... Cats?’ he offered, uncertainly.
The Graveyard Book
25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying 'Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?'26 And the Angel said, 'I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.'27 And the Lord did not ask him again.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.
American Gods
You're Hell's Angels, then? What chapter are you from?''REVELATIONS. CHAPTER SIX.
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch