“We often confuse what we wish for with what is.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“You can't run away from home without destroying somebody's world.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“Careful lads," said the beetle at the front. "She's dangerous all right. Look at that changeable expression."
"I'm not dangerous," I told them.
"Dangerous. Not dangerous. Same thing," said the beetle.
"And what I say," said the next beetle along, "is, it's the dangerous ones you have to watch out for.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“Sometimes, "I told him, as the darkness swirled closer and closer, "you just have to say you're sorry."
It's more than that, and I think by then I knew it. It's more than saying sorry.
It's meaning it. It's letting the apology change things. But an apology is where it has to begin.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“A plop of rain hit me on the face, one of those early raindrops that turns up five minutes ahead of all the others to let you know it's time to get indoors.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“The juggler seemed worried. "Throw it a book," he said.
I threw it a book, and it tore into it, like a cat ripping a small animal apart; and while the creature ate its book the juggler pushed the door open. He nearly fell into a deep chasm on the other side. "Not a disaster," he said, as if he was trying to convince himself. "We need more books. Big books."
It didn't seem like a good time for reading, but I pulled two huge old books off the shelf in the corner and carried them over to him. He took one, but didn't read it. He told it what a bad book it was and threw it on the ground. The book bounced in the air and hung there quivering, and the juggler man jumped onto it and began to float away. "As long as they think you don't like them," said the juggler, "they migrate back to the library. And we get a free ride."
I rode next to him on my book, and we crossed the chasm safely. The books floated away and I waved them good-bye.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“There was a grumpy librarian in the library. I could tell that he was the librarian because he seemed to be made of books. I told him that we needed information, and he got us some butterfly nets and sent us up to the top floor of the library.
I wondered why we were carrying nets. Valentine didn't know.
The book I wanted was pretty obvious. It was called A History of Everything.
Finding it was easy. Catching it, however, was not. The moment I reached for it, the whole shelfful of books took off into the air, fluttering like pigeons, and suddenly I knew what the butterfly nets were for.
I waved the net about and eventually I caught A History of Everything. As soon as I'd got it, all the rest of the books flapped back to their shelf, all except one, a little red-covered book, which fluttered over my head happily.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“Valentine preened, "Oh, I'm a panther," he said. "I shall slip unnoticed through the darkness like a dark unnoticeable slippy thing.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“Valentine," I said, "are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Absolutely," he said. "If we put little wheels on our feet we could just roll around everywhere.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“It's not hard to mess things up.
It's a lot harder to try and put the world back together again.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
“We've had our ups and downs since then, but that's what families have, ups and downs.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from MirrorMask
Neil Gaiman
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“To think of the Midwest as a whole as anything other than beautiful is to ignore the extraordinary power of the land. The lushness of the grass and trees in August, the roll of the hills (far less of the Midwest is flat than outsiders seem to imagine), the rich smell of soil, the evening sunlight over a field of wheat, or the crickets chirping at dusk on a residential street: All of it, it has always made me feel at peace. There is room to breathe, there is a realness of place. The seasons are extreme, but they pass and return, pass and return, and the world seems far steadier than it does from the vantage point of a coastal city.
Certainly picturesque towns can be found in New England or California or the Pacific Northwest, but I can't shake the sense that they're too picturesque. On the East Coast, especially, these places seem to me aggressively quaint, unbecomingly smug, and even xenophobic, downright paranoid in their wariness of those who might somehow infringe upon the local charm. I suspect this wariness is tied to the high cost of real estate, the fear that there might not be enough space or money and what there is of both must be clung to and defended. The West Coast, I think, has a similar self-regard...and a beauty that I can't help seeing as show-offy. But the Midwest: It is quietly lovely, not preening with the need to have its attributes remarked on. It is the place I am calmest and most myself.”
― Curtis Sittenfeld, quote from American Wife
“At that point, Noriko finally breaks down and begins to cry sobbing into her hands as the floodgates open - this young woman who has suffered in silence for so long, this good woman who refuse to believe she's good, for only the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing. They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive themselves.”
― Paul Auster, quote from Man in the Dark
“(Hippocampi are so my newest favorite mythological creature. I keep asking my husband for one. He keeps saying no, the griffin wouldn’t like it.)”
― Rick Riordan, quote from Demigods and Monsters: Your Favorite Authors on Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series
“Yep, Gin and Brandi. Call me crazy, but naming your daughters after alcoholic beverages is just asking for trouble.”
― Kelley Armstrong, quote from Waking the Witch
“A real man's gotta be a hero to his wife before he can be a hero to anybody else- or he ain't a real man.”
― Eric Wilson, quote from Fireproof
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