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
Neil Gaiman
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“If he had driven to the south coast on a different afternoon, I thought. If he had driven there on one of those afternoons when I was there with Jock during the autumn and winter, instead of one of the days when I wasn’t there. And if we had walked toward each other and caught sight of each other, and I had thought, Oh look, there’s Johannes Alby, and he’d thought, Oh look, there’s Dorrit Weger with her little dog. And if we had stopped and chatted, and if I had invited him back to my house for a cup of coffee or a bowl of soup or some pasta. If it had started like that. If it had started then.”
― Ninni Holmqvist, quote from The Unit
“Words, it seems, are like felt pens. If you don't use them for a while they dry up.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde
“From what I have seen of the world, Reverend, motherhood is a certainty, but fatherhood is a subject of debate.”
― Michael Crummey, quote from Galore
“Here is something I have learned the hard way, but which a lot of well-meaning people in the West have a hard time accepting: All human beings are equal, but all cultures and religions are not. A culture that celebrates femininity and considers women to be the masters of their own lives is better than a culture that mutilates girls’ genitals and confines them behind walls and veils or flogs or stones them for falling in love. A culture that protects women’s rights by law is better than a culture in which a man can lawfully have four wives at once and women are denied alimony and half their inheritance. A culture that appoints women to its supreme court is better than a culture that declares that the testimony of a woman is worth half that of a man. It is part of Muslim culture to oppress women and part of all tribal cultures to institutionalize patronage, nepotism, and corruption. The culture of the Western Enlightenment is better. In the real world, equal respect for all cultures doesn’t translate into a rich mosaic of colorful and proud peoples interacting peacefully while maintaining a delightful diversity of food and craftwork. It translates into closed pockets of oppression, ignorance, and abuse. Many people genuinely feel pain at the thought of the death of whole cultures. I see this all the time. They ask, “Is there nothing beautiful in these cultures? Is there nothing beautiful in Islam?” There is beautiful architecture, yes, and encouragement of charity, yes, but Islam is built on sexual inequality and on the surrender of individual responsibility and choice. This is not just ugly; it is monstrous.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, quote from Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
“If we read the text alone, assuming that the word 'cross' can only derive its meaning from the later death of Jesus, then its appearance in the text must be an anachronism read back into the story after the crucifixion. This conclusion becomes unnecessary if the cross, being the standard punishment for insurrection or for the refusal to confess Caesar's lordship, already had a clear definition in the listener's awareness. 'Take up your cross' may even have been a standard phrase of Zealot recruiting. The disciple's cross is not a metaphor for self-mortification or even generally innocent suffering; 'if you follow me, your fate will be like mine, the fate of a revolutionary. You cannot follow me without facing that fate.”
― John Howard Yoder, quote from The Politics of Jesus
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