Gaiman

I saw a quote of Neil Gaiman in several livejournals I've been frequenting and so I was swept again with feelings of regret that I didn't get to see him when he visited Manila. So what else can I do? I just want to make this entry all about his quotes, for all of you to see the gift of Neil Gaiman's writings.

And.. this does make a very good advertisement for you to buy those Gaiman books. Although I dearly wish I'm rich so I can buy the Sandman series. With a title like "The Sandman", it clearly defies imagination on how rich and fantastic and great the writings on those graphic novels must be. Gah! But I added my own favorite quotes from my favorite Gaiman books at the bottom.

Okay, this is my pathetic and vain attempt to put the genius of Neil Gaiman in a bottle -- or erm, a page of a blog entry which clearly couldn't be done and shouldn't be done. But well, that's it...just a vain, pathetic attempt. Forgive me, if you will.


*my favorites are, quite obviously, in italics. A quote to remember, so you can spout it to someone else when you feel like it...."Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it?..." Tee hee.

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"It does help, to be a writer, to have the sort of crazed ego that doesn't allow for failure. The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering "Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!" and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there's nothing left to write." --Neil Gaiman

"Firstly, there is no such person as Death. Second, Death's this tall guy with a bone face, like a skeletal monk, with a scythe and an hourglass and a big white horse and a penchant for playing chess with Scandinavians. Third, he doesn't exist either." -- Neil Gaiman

"It is a fool's prerogative to utter truths that no one else will speak." -- Neil Gaiman

"We all not only could know everything. We do. We just tell ourselves we don't to make it all bearable." -- Neil Gaiman

"This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof. " -- Neil Gaiman

"You get what anyone gets -- a lifetime." - Death, Sandman, Neil Gaiman

"God does not play dice with the universe: He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players,* to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time. * i.e., everybody." - Good Omens , Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, In Religion

"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, In Love

"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, In Literature

"Life is a disease, sexually transmitted and fatal." --- Neil Gaiman, In Philosophy

"Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazment the while." --- Neil Gaiman, In Literature

"Charitably... I think... sometimes, perhaps , one must change or die. And, in the end,there were,perhaps limits to how much he could let himself change." --- Neil Gaiman, Lucien/The Sandman

"Writers are liars my dear, surely you know that by now?" --- Neil Gaiman, 'Sandman: Dream County'

"But he did not understand the price. Mortals never do. They only see the prize.Their heart's desire,their dream... But the price of getting what you want is getting what you once wanted.
--- Neil Gaiman, Dream/The Sandman

"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, Sandman

"It has always been the prerogative of children and half wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half wit remains a half wit and the emperor remains an emperor." --- Neil Gaiman, The Sandman

"So it will be miracles and wonders that you would be after is it?... Oh very well...a miracle, a wonder. Tomorrow, you shall attain your Heart's Desire." -- Star Dust, Neil Gaiman

"Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us." -- Star Dust, Neil Gaiman

"Adventures are all very well in their place, he thought, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain." -- Star Dust, Neil Gaiman

"...the room was a tiny empire of lost property...This is his real domain...Things lost. Things forgotten." -- Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman

"Have you ever got everything you ever wanted? And then realized it wasn't what you wanted at all?" --- Neverwhere, Neil Gaiman


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There is more. Lots, lots more, I'm sure. As Gaiman, as I see it, tends to drop his many nuggets of beautiful quotes scattered all around, in between lines, over and sideways, in many paragraphs of his novels. Well, you just got to read them, don't you?