Neil Gaiman · 104 pages
Rating: (37.8K votes)
“On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing. So we talk. She says things no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hotdog and then it's like nothing's impossible.
She told me once there is a part of her in everyone, though Neil believes I'm more Delirium than Tori, and Death taught me to accept that, you know, wear your butterflies with pride. And when I do accept that, I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all the girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is." She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Death: The High Cost of Living Collected
“Over the last few hours I've allowed myself to feel defeated, and just like she said if you allow yourself to feel the way you really feel, maybe you won't be afraid of that feeling anymore.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Death: The High Cost of Living Collected
“To be honest, I think love is complete bullshit. I don't think anyone ever loves anyone. I think the best people ever get is horny; horny and scared, so when they find someone who makes them horny, and they get too scared of the world outside, they stay together and they call it love.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Death: The High Cost of Living Collected
“It always ends. That's what gives it value.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Death: The High Cost of Living Collected
“There's this thing, they have in french: L'espirit d'escalier. The spirit of the stairway. I don't think we have a word for it in English. It means, well, the clever things to say that you only think to yourself when you're on the way out.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Death: The High Cost of Living Collected
“Oh - that family, yes. There are still some photos of them around here. They look like nice people, don't they?"
They...'look like nice people'?"
Well, they do, don't they? Of course, they never actually existed - except maybe in the most tenuous and retrospective way - but still, it's nice to think they were good people."
Uh. Right. Gee, I suppose you must do a lot of drugs.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Death: The High Cost of Living Collected
“If all I can say is I'm not in this swamp, I'm not in this swamp then there is not a rope in front of me and there is not an alligator behind me and there is not a girl sitting at the edge eating a hot dog and if I believe that, then dying would be the only answer because then Death couldn't come and say Peachy to me anymore and after all she has a brother who believes in hope.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Death: The High Cost of Living Collected
“In't Frans bestaat zo'n uitdrukking: l'esprit d'escalier. De geest van de trap. Volgens mij hebben wij daar niet eens echt 'n goed woord voor.
'T betekent... Nou ja, alles wat je had kunnen zeggen, maar pas bedenkt als je alweer weg bent.
Al die bijdehante dingen die je toen eigenlijk had willen zeggen.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from Death: The High Cost of Living Collected
“There's a famous line from a poem about the ocean," Mother had finally said to end the discussion. "'Water water every where, but not a drop to drink.”
― Mindy McGinnis, quote from Not a Drop to Drink
“I prefer my justice to be blind.”
― Amy A. Bartol, quote from Under Different Stars
“Heirs to the philosophy of a Zionist zealot named Vladimir Jabotinsky, they clung to the dream of a Jewish state running from Acre to Amman, from Mount Hermon to the Suez Canal. For them, Churchill's decision to create the emirate of Transjordan with a stroke of his pen on a Sunday afternoon in Cairo had been a mutilation of the Balfour Declaration. They wanted it all, all the land that had once belonged to the Biblical kingdom of Israel, and they wanted it, if possible, without the encumbering presence of its Arab inhabitants.”
― Larry Collins, quote from O Jerusalem
“Linguistic research has shown that the passive construction has a number of indispensable functions because of the way it engages a reader’s attention and memory.”
― Steven Pinker, quote from The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century
“That is the problem with gifts, Madar-jan. They are always given away.”
― Nadia Hashimi, quote from The Pearl That Broke Its Shell
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