Quotes from Brief Lives

“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, quote from Brief Lives

“You know the best thing about aeroplanes? Apart from the peanuts in the little silver bags, I mean.

It's looking out of the windows at the clouds, and thinking, maybe I could go walking in there. Maybe it's a special place where everything's okay.

Sometimes I do go walking in the clouds, but it's just cold and wet and empty. But when you look out of a plane it's a special world... and I like that.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“She said we all not only could know everything. We do. We just tell ourselves we don't to make it all bearable.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“I like airplanes. I like anywhere that isn't a proper place. I like in betweens.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“Touched by her fingers, the two surviving chocolate people copulate desperately, losing themselves in a melting frenzy of lust, spending the last of their brief borrowed lives in a spasm of raspberry cream and fear.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“You got a lifetime. No more. No less.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“Delirium: "What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?"
Dream: "There isn't one."
Delirium: "Oh. I thought maybe there was.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“The stuff you bring back from dreams is free.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“Have you ever spent days and days and days making up flavors of ice cream that no one's ever eaten before? Like chicken and telepone ice cream? Green mouse ice cream was the worst. I didn't like that at all.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“Change. Change. Change. Change … change. Change. Chaaange. When you say words a lot they don't mean anything. Or maybe they don't mean anything anyway, and we just think they do.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother? I do. There are things not in your book. There are paths outside this garden.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“One cannot begin a new dream without abandoning the last [one].”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“Is there a word for forgetting the name of someone when you want to introduce them to someone else at the same time you realize you've forgotten the name of the person you're introducing them to as well?"
"No.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“There are a number of paths that lead to this place. I have been avoiding them for some small time, now.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“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.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“I walk across the dreaming sands under the pale moon: through the dreams of countries and cities, past dreams of places long gone and times beyond recall.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“DESTRUCTION: Our sister [Death] defines life, just as Despair defines hope, or Desire defines hatred, or as Destiny defines freedom.

MORPHEUS: And what do I define, by this theory of yours.

DESTRUCTION: Reality, perhaps.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“Hey, that's life, flick it off if you can't take a joke.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, the'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, quote from Brief Lives

“What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“You can indeed become lost, in dreams. And you may not always find yourself when you wake up.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“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, quote from Brief Lives

“Delirium: Um. What’s the name of the word for things not being the same always. You know. I’m sure there is one. Isn’t there? There must be a word for it… the thing that lets you know time is happening. Is there a word?
Dream: Change.
Delirium: …I was afraid of that.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“It always rains on the unloved-wet dreams-a fishing expedition-she kisses wyverns (the disneyland analogy)-dinner etiquette and chocolate lovers-desire swears by the first circle-"things are changing"-what can possibly go wrong?”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“It's just that I get distracted, and I get Lost kind of easily, and sometimes I have really bad days....
....When, you know, I just want to Hide or Scream or Bleed or something, and.....All that...”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“To bite off your shadow is neither easy nor painless. It demands a single-mindedness that is almost unknown in this day.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“Of course, the truth is that no one likes change. People in hell not only refuse to leave it, they invite you in, too. Even people who have blasted the other lives that touched their own blasted lives proudly declare in old age that they would not change a thing -- all that cursing and screaming was their life, by God, and it is not possible to imagine any other. Change introduces unpredictability, uncertainty, a universe of disorder. Right before an amoeba splits in two, it says to itself, uh uh, no way, I ain't gonna do that, nope.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

“So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?"

"When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget."

"But that's not fair!"

"No.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Brief Lives

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Popular quotes

“Breath of the winds; dancing flame; peace of the earth; song of the waves.”
― Juliet Marillier, quote from Seer of Sevenwaters

“We tend to have mixed feelings about the holy. There is a sense in which we are at the same time attracted to it and repulsed by it. Something draws us toward it, while at the same time we want to run away from it. We can’t seem to decide which way we want it. Part of us yearns for the holy, while part of us despises it. We can’t live with it, and we can’t live without it.”
― R.C. Sproul, quote from The Holiness of God

“A woman who likes her whisky,” he said while refilling her glass. “Careful that you doona steal my heart, Annalía.” “It figures that the one requirement you’d have for your woman is ‘whisky drinker.’” “Aye, but that’s only after ‘walks upright.”
― Kresley Cole, quote from If You Dare

“The destination of the journey could not be altered, only the manner in which one approached it - whether one chose to walk erect or to be dragged complaining through the dust.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Pompeii

“В быстролётные годы расцвета женской красоты она отлично служит притворству, к которому вынуждает женщину её природная слабость и законы нашего общества. Чудесный, свежий цвет лица, блеск глаз, изящный рисунок тонких черт, богатство линий, резких или округлых, но чистых и совершенно законченных, — завеса для всех её сокровенных волнений; если она покраснеет, это не выдаст движения её души, а только оживит и без того яркие краски; огонь её глаз, горящих жизнью, в ту пору скрадывает все внутренние вспышки, и пламя страданий, вырываясь на миг, делает её ещё пленительнее. Итак, нет ничего более непроницаемого, чем молодое лицо, ибо нет ничего неподвижнее. Лицо молодой женщины безмятежно, гладко, ясно, как поверхность дремлющего озера. Своеобразие начинает появляться в женском лице лишь к тридцати годам. До этого возраста художнику не найти в нём ничего, кроме бело-розовых красок, улыбок и выражения, которое повторяет одну и ту же мысль, — мысль о радостях молодости и любви, мысль однообразную и неглубокую; но в старости, когда женщина всё уже испытала, следы страстей словно врезаются в лицо её; она была любовницей, супругой, матерью; самые сильные проявления счастья и горя в конце концов меняют облик человека, искажают черты, бороздя лицо неисчислимыми морщинами, наделяя каждую из них своим языком; и женщина становится тогда величественной в своём страдании, прекрасной в печали своей, великолепной в своей невозмутимости, и если нам позволено будет развить наше необычайное сравнение, то в высохшем озере станут тогда видны следы всех родников, питавших его; тогда лицо женщины уже не привлечёт внимания света, ибо в легкомыслии своём свет будет напуган тем, что разрушены его привычные понятия о красоте; не привлечёт оно и посредственного, ничего не смыслящего художника, зато вдохновит истинного поэта, того, кто наделён чувством прекрасного, кто свободен от всех условностей, на которых зиждется столько ложных понятий об искусстве и красоте.
Люди несчастные, привыкшие взывать к небу с мольбой об утешении в горестях жизни, сразу бы распознали по взгляду этой женщины, что и для неё молитва является единственным прибежищем в повседневных страданиях и что у неё ещё кровоточат те тайные раны, от которых гибнут все цветы души, вплоть до материнских чувств. У живописца есть краски для таких портретов, но никакими словами не передать их; сущность лица, его выражение — само по себе явление необъяснимое, и лишь зрение помогает нам уловить его; у писателя есть только один способ дать представление о страшных переменах, происшедших во внешности его героев: он должен рассказать о тех событиях, из-за которых они появились. Всё в этой женщине говорило о бесшумной ледяной грозе, о тайной борьбе между героизмом страдающей матери и убожеством наших чувств, недолговечных, как и мы сами, в которых нет ничего вечного.
Люди хорошо воспитанные, и особенно женщины, скрытны в проявлении своих чувств, и о волнении их сердца догадается лишь тот, кому довелось испытать в жизни всё, что испытывала исстрадавшаяся мать.”
― Honoré de Balzac, quote from A Woman Of Thirty

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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