�“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.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.” ― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“I can believe things that are true and things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not.

I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen - I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women.

I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state.

I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste.

I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds.

I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman.

I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck.

I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too.

I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's r

ight to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system.

I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“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.”― Neil Gaiman

“Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal.”― Neil Gaiman

“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.”― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors

“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.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 3: Dream Country

“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the 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.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 5: A Game of You

“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 fooling a soul.”― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“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.”― Neil Gaiman

“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. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“Tomorrow may be hell, but today was a good writing day, and on the good writing days nothing else matters.”― Neil Gaiman

“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.”― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

“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, Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days

“Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.”― Neil Gaiman

“You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

“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.”― Neil Gaiman

“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.”― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.”― Neil Gaiman

“Let us begin this letter, this prelude to an encounter, formally, as a declaration, in the old-fashioned way: I love you. You do not know me (although you have seen me, smiled at me). I know you (although not so well as I would like. I want to be there when your eyes flutter open in the morning, and you see me, and you smile. Surely this would be paradise enough?). So I do declare myself to you now, with pen set to paper. I declare it again: I love you.”― Neil Gaiman

“[D]on't ever apologize to an author for buying something in paperback, or taking it out from a library (that's what they're there for. Use your library). Don't apologize to this author for buying books second hand, or getting them from bookcrossing or borrowing a friend's copy. What's important to me is that people read the books and enjoy them, and that, at some point in there, the book was bought by someone. And that people who like things, tell other people. The most important thing is that people read... ”― Neil Gaiman

“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.”― Neil Gaiman

“Each person who ever was or is or will be has a song. It isn't a song that anybody else wrote. It has its own melody, it has its own words. Very few people get to sing their song. Most of us fear that we cannot do it justice with our voices, or that our words are too foolish or too honest, or too odd. So people live their song instead.”

― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“Only the phoenix rises and does not descend. And everything changes. And nothing is truly lost.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake

“Stories may well be lies, but they are good lies that say true things, and which can sometimes pay the rent.”― Neil Gaiman

“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.”― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

“I think I fell in love with her, a little bit. Isn't that dumb? But it was like I knew her. Like she was my oldest, dearest friend. The kind of person you can tell anything to, no matter how bad, and they'll still love you, because they know you. I wanted to go with her. I wanted her to notice me. And then she stopped walking. Under the moon, she stopped. And looked at us. She looked at me. Maybe she was trying to tell me something; I don't know. She probably didn't even know I was there. But I'll always love her. All my life.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 8: Worlds' End

“I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.”― Neil Gaiman

“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.”― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

“Most people don't realize how important librarians are. I ran across a book recently which suggested that the peace and prosperity of a culture was solely related to how many librarians it contained. Possibly a slight overstatement. But a culture that doesn't value its librarians doesn't value ideas and without ideas, well, where are we?”― Neil Gaiman

“He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.”― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you can betray them with your tongue. (from "Instructions")”― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

“I am selfish, private and easily bored. Will this be a problem?”― Neil Gaiman, A Study in Emerald

“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?''Cats don't have names,' it said.'No?' said Coraline.

'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?''Cats don't have names,' it said.'No?' said Coraline.'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 4: Season of Mists

“There are only two worlds - your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. these worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power; provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. ”― Neil Gaiman, The Books of Magic

“Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us.”― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.”― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“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!”― Neil Gaiman

“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.”― Neil Gaiman

“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.”― Neil Gaiman, M Is for Magic

“We...we could be friends.'

We COULD be rare specimens of an exotic breed of dancing African elephants, but we're not. At least, I'M not.”― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds' eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks. Or they are words on the air, composed of sounds and ideas-abstract, invisible, gone once they've been spoken-and what could be more frail than that? But some stories, small, simple ones about setting out on adventures or people doing wonders, tales of miracles and monsters, have outlasted all the people who told them, and some of them have outlasted the lands in which they were created.”― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things

“I have always felt that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent, and empty threats the last sanctuary of the terminally inept.”― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.”― Neil Gaiman

“An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards.”― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

“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.”― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“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.”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend...”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 7: Brief Lives \

“You've a good heart. Sometimes that's enough to see you safe wherever you go. But mostly, it's not.”― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“What power would hell have if those imprisoned here would not be able to dream of heaven?”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

“Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Even nothing cannot last forever.”― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.”― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

“Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.”― Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys

“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 yo

ung man who ever lived.”― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“CHORONZON: I am a dire world, prey-stalking, lethal prowler.

MORPHEUS: I am a hunter, horse-mounted, wolf-stabbing.

CHORONZON: I am a horsefly, horse-stinging, hunter-throwing.

MORPHEUS: I am a spider, fly-consuming, eight legged.

CHORONZON: I am a snake, spider-devouring, posion-toothed.

MORPHEUS: I am an ox, snake-crushing, heavy footed.

CHORONZON: I am an anthrax, butcher, bacterium, warm-life destroying.

MORPHEUS: I am a world, space-floating, life nurturing.

CHORONZON: I am a nova, all-exploding... planet-cremating.

MORPHEUS: I am the Universe -- all things encompassing, all life embracing.

CHORONZON: I am Anti-Life, the Beast of Judgement. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds... of everything. Sss. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?

MORPHEUS: I am hope. ”― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes

“Every lover is, in his heart, a madman, and, in his head, a minstrel.”― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.”― Neil Gaiman

“Adventures are all very well in their place, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.”― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

You have to believe. Otherwise, it will never happen.”― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak.”― Neil Gaiman

“You don't get explanations in real life. You just get moments that are absolutely, utterly, inexplicably odd.”― Neil Gaiman

“People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.”― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“If you want to imagine the future, imagine a boy and his dog and his friends. And a summer that never ends.”― Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

“Write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.”― Neil Gaiman

“A novel seemed the easiest way to get what I had had in my head into the inside of other people's heads. Books are good that way.”― Neil Gaiman

“If it's true that every seven years each cell in your body dies and is replaced, then I have truly inherited my life from a dead man; and the misdeeds of those times have been forgiven, and are buried with his bones.”― Neil Gaiman

“I don't think you should ever insult people unintentionally: if you're doing it, you ought to mean it.”― Neil Gaiman

“It begins, as most things begin, with a song.”― Neil Gaiman

“When the first living thing existed, I was there waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights, and lock the universe behind me as I leave.”― Neil Gaiman

“We have the right, and the obligation, to tell old stories in our own ways, because they are our stories.”― Neil Gaiman

“Honestly, if you're given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don't say 'what kind of tea?”― Neil Gaiman

“Even the proudest spirit can be broken with love.”― Neil Gaiman

“(When asked: But you have a very open relationship with your fans.) Yes. We have an open relationship. Obviously they can see other authors if they want, and I can see other readers.”― Neil Gaiman

“Writing is flying in dreams. When you remember. When you can. When it works. It's that easy.”― Neil Gaiman

“...gods, religions and national boundaries are absolutely imaginary. They don't tend to exist. As soon as you pull back half a mile and look down at the Earth there are no national boundaries. There aren't even national boundaries when you get down and walk around. They're just imaginary lines we draw on maps. I just get fascinated by people who assume that things that are imaginary have no relevance to their lives.”

― Neil Gaiman

“My very small part in WATCHMEN is that, every now and then, Alan would phone me: ''Neil, you're an educated man. Where does it say...''

He would need a quote from the Bible, or an essay about owls. I was his occasional research assistant.”― Neil Gaiman

“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers, a librarian can bring you back the right one.”― Neil Gaiman

“A book is a dream that you hold in your hands.”― Neil Gaiman

“One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it.”― Neil Gaiman