Quotes by Neil Gaiman

Read. Read anything. Read the things they say are good for you, and the things they claim are junk. Youll find what you need to find. Just read.

Lets start a new tomorrow, today.

Now you people have names. Thats because you dont know who you are. We know who we are, so we dont need names.

So thats my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobodys ever made before. Dont freeze, dont stop, dont worry that it isnt good enough, or it isnt perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

She could hear, some way off, her brothers calling to each other in the woods behind the house. She hoped desperately that their game wouldnt bring them any closer, that they wouldnt scare the birds away. Somehow she knew that you didnt get many moments like this in your life: moments when you knew, without any doubt, that you were alive, when you felt the air in your lungs and the wet grass beneath your feet and the cotton on your skin; moments when you were completely in the present, when neither the past nor the future mattered. She tried to slow her breathing, hoping somehow to make this moment last forever.

I don’t ever remember being afraid of “oldness”.There are things I miss about being younger - chiefly the ability to pull all-nighters and keep working and working well; and being smiled at by girls I didn’t know who thought I was cute; and I wish I had the eyesight I had even five years ago… but that stuff feels pretty trivial. I’m happier than I’ve been at any time in my life these days. I have a wonderful wife whom I adore, watched three amazing kids grow into two delightful adults and my favourite teenager, an astonishing number of grand life experiences, I’ve made art I’m proud of, I have real, true, glorious friends, and I’ve been able to do real good for things I care about, like freedom of speech, like libraries.Sometimes I’ll do something like An Evening With Neil and Amanda, or the 8 in 8 project, and completely surprise myself.I miss friends who have died, but then, I’m glad that time gave them to me, to befriend, even for a while, and that I was alive to know them. I knew Douglas Adams, and I knew Roger Zelazny, and I knew John M Ford, and I knew Diana Wynne Jones… do you know how lucky that makes me?Ah, I’m rabbiting on, and I sound a bit more Pollyannaish than I’m intending to sound: I know the downside of age and the downside of time, and I am sure that the view from age 51 is not the view from age 71.I wish the time hadn’t gone so fast, though. And sometimes I wish I’d enjoyed it more on the way, and worried about it less.

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

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.

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.

I know that David Tennants Hamlet isnt till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who in Hamlet jokes, so this is just me getting it out of the way early, to avoid the rush...To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, youre looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?

Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.

How do I know youll keep your word? asked Coraline.I swear it, said the other mother. I swear it on my own mothers 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.

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.

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.

The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.

Youre Hells Angels, then? What chapter are you from?REVELATIONS. CHAPTER SIX.

He had heard about talking to plants in the early seventies, on Radio Four, and thought it was an excellent idea. Although talking is perhaps the wrong word for what Crowley did. What he did was put the fear of God into them. More precisely, the fear of Crowley. In addition to which, every couple of months Crowley would pick out a plant that was growing too slowly, or succumbing to leaf-wilt or browning, or just didnt look quite as good as the others, and he would carry it around to all the other plants. Say goodbye to your friend, hed say to them. He just couldnt cut it. . . Then he would leave the flat with the offending plant, and return an hour or so later with a large, empty flower pot, which he would leave somewhere conspicuously around the flat. The plants were the most luxurious, verdant, and beautiful in London. Also the most terrified.

I mean, dyou know what eternity is? Theres this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years theres this little bird-What little bird? said Aziraphale suspiciously.This little bird Im talking about. And every thousand years-The same bird every thousand years?Crowley hesitated. Yeah, he said.Bloody ancient bird, then.Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies--limps--flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak-Hold on. You cant do that. Between here and the end of the universe theres loads of- The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. Loads of buggerall, dear boy.But it gets there anyway, Crowley persevered.How?It doesnt matter!It could use a space ship, said the angel.Crowley subsided a bit. Yeah, he said. If you like. Anyway, this bird-Only it is the end of the universe were talking about, said Aziraphale. So itd have to be one of those space ships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, youve got to- He hesitated. What havethey got to do?Sharpen its beak on the mountain, said Crowley. And then it flies back--in the space ship-And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again, said Crowley quickly.There was a moment of drunken silence.Seems a lot of effort just to sharpen a beak, mused Aziraphale.Listen, said Crowley urgently, the point is that when the bird has worn the mountain down to nothing, right, then-Aziraphale opened his mouth. Crowley just knew he was going to make some point about the relative hardness of birds beaks and granite mountains, and plunged on quickly.-then you still wont have finished watching The Sound of Music.Aziraphale froze.And youll enjoy it, Crowley said relentlessly. You really will.My dear boy-You wont have a choice.Listen-Heaven has no taste.Now-And not one single sushi restaurant.A look of pain crossed the angels suddenly very serious face.

Death and Famine and War and Pollution continued biking towards Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty To Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After Youve Given Them A Good Thumping but secretly No Alcohol Lager, and Really Cool People travelled with them.

Hell may have all the best composers, but heaven has all the best choreographers.