Quotes from The Books of Magic

Neil Gaiman ·  200 pages

Rating: (13.5K votes)


“There are only two worlds - your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. these worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power; provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. ”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Books of Magic


“This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, excepting only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Books of Magic


“Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality.
Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore.
The two are rarely compatible.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Books of Magic


“It is a sea of blood. We come from the sea, Tim; our blood is salt, and strange tides ebb and flow within us all.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Books of Magic


“Humanity is evil -- civilization is the scum that forms on the surface, but beneath, humanity consists of brutes and animals.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Books of Magic



About the author

Neil Gaiman
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“When unions get higher wages for their members by restricting entry into an occupation, those higher wages are at the expense of other workers who find their opportunities reduced. When government pays its employees higher wages, those higher wages are at the expense of the taxpayer. But when workers get higher wages and better working conditions through the free market, when they get raises by firm competing with one another for the best workers, by workers competing with one another for the best jobs, those higher wages are at nobody's expense. They can only come from higher productivity, greater capital investment, more widely diffused skills. The whole pie is bigger - there's more for the worker, but there's also more for the employer, the investor, the consumer, and even the tax collector.

That's the way the free market system distributes the fruits of economic progress among all people. That's the secret of the enormous improvements in the conditions of the working person over the past two centuries.”
― Milton Friedman, quote from Free to Choose: A Personal Statement


“The only power poor people have is their hunger.”
― Ben Okri, quote from The Famished Road


“Once you harden, the arteries do.”
― Allan Gurganus, quote from Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All


“Kelly was starting to have serious second thoughts about the whole assignment. Like all war correspondents, she supposed. Being on the ground was very different to sitting in the office anticipating being on the ground. Especially with the appearance of that red cloud.”
― Peter F. Hamilton, quote from The Reality Dysfunction


“. . . and what if I did drink too much? Whose business is that? Who knows how much I didn't drink?”
― William Kennedy, quote from Ironweed


Interesting books

Child 44
(59.4K)
Child 44
by Tom Rob Smith
The Golem's Eye
(76.8K)
The Golem's Eye
by Jonathan Stroud
More Than This
(35.2K)
More Than This
by Patrick Ness
The City of Dreaming Books
(12.7K)
The City of Dreaming...
by Walter Moers
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd
(97.6K)
One Thousand White W...
by Jim Fergus
Blue Moon
(56.5K)
Blue Moon
by Laurell K. Hamilton

About BookQuoters

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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.