Quotes from The Graveyard Book

Neil Gaiman ·  307 pages

Rating: (352.7K votes)


“You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Sleep my little baby-oh
Sleep until you waken
When you wake you'll see the world
If I'm not mistaken...

Kiss a lover
Dance a measure,
Find your name
And buried treasure...

Face your life
Its pain,
Its pleasure,
Leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book



“You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you can change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Name the different kinds of people,’ said Miss Lupescu. ‘Now.’

Bod thought for a moment. ‘The living,’ he said. ‘Er. The dead.’ He stopped. Then, ‘... Cats?’ he offered, uncertainly.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Kiss a lover,
Dance a measure,
Find your name
And buried treasure.

Face your life,
It's pain,
It's pleasure,
Leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book



“You can't trust other people. If it's important, you have to do it yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“You're brave. You are the bravest person I know, and you are my friend. I don't care if you are imaginary.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“The tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste out sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Bod said, 'I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want,' he said, and then he paused and he thought. 'I want everything.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book



“Things bloosom in their time. They bud and bloom, blossom and fade. Everything in its time.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“You are obvious, boy. You are difficult to miss. If you came to me in company with a purple lion, a green elephant, and a scarlet unicorn astride which was the King of England in his Royal Robes, I do believe that it is you and you alone that people would stare at, dismissing the others as minor irrelevancies.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind/Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,/Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,/Above, beneath, betwixt, between.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“If you dare nothing,
then when the day is over,
nothing is all you will have gained.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Really, he thought, if you couldn't trust a poet to offer sensible advice, who could you trust?”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book



“Fear is contagious. You can catch it. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say that they're scared for the fear to become real. Mo was terrified, and now Nick was too. ”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“I'll find you. Don't worry. Just be on your own and I'll find you.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Truly, life is wasted on the living, Nobody Owens. For one of us is too foolish to live, and it is not I.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Because there are mysteries. Because there are things that people are forbidden to speak about. Because there are things they do not remember.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“And he waited. It was only for a few seconds, but it felt like a small forever.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book



“And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence.'
'They kill themselves, you mean?' said Bod. [...]
'Indeed.'
'Does it work? Are they happier dead?'
'Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“It is neither fair nor unfair, Nobody Owens. It simply is”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“Nearly' only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book


“I think . . . I said things to Silas. He'll be angry.'

'If he didn't care about you, you couldn't upset him,' was all she said.”
― Neil Gaiman, quote from The Graveyard Book



Video

About the author

Neil Gaiman
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“It's so nice to know where you're going, in the early stages. It almost rids you of the wish to go there.”
― Samuel Beckett, quote from Molloy


“She thought she loved him. What do you have in your pocket?”
He smiled, drew out the gray button that had fallen off her very ugly suit the first day they’d met.
“See?” She couldn’t say why that stupid button moved her so damn much. “People in love keep things. Sentimental things.”
“What do you have?”
She pulled the chain, and the tear-shaped diamond from under her shirt. “I wouldn’t wear this for anybody but you. It’s embarrassing. And—”
“Ah, something else.”
“Shit. I’m tired. It makes me gabby. I have one of your shirts.”
His brow creased in absolute bafflement. “My shirts?”
“In my drawer, under a bunch of stuff. You lent it to me the morning after our first night together. It still sort of smells like you.”
For a moment, the worry on his face simply dissolved. “I believe that’s the sweetest thing you’ve said to me in all our time together.”
“Well, I owed you. Besides, you have enough shirts to outfit a Broadway troupe. So, help me toss the room?”
“Absolutely.”
― J.D. Robb, quote from New York to Dallas


“Even if I had not been thinking about it, for that matter, certainly I would have had to begin to do so when I typed those last few sentences.”
― David Markson, quote from Wittgenstein's Mistress


“Perfection is nothing more than a phantom shadow we’re all chasing”
― Julie Murphy, quote from Dumplin'


“I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood;
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-read heath,
The red-ribb'd ledges drip with a silent horror of blood
And Echo there, whatever is ask'd her, answers "Death".”
― Agatha Christie, quote from The Hollow


Interesting books

Icefall
(4.8K)
Icefall
by Matthew J. Kirby
The Sweetest Thing
(17.3K)
The Sweetest Thing
by Jill Shalvis
A Want So Wicked
(1.9K)
A Want So Wicked
by Suzanne Young
Winter Moon
(14.5K)
Winter Moon
by Dean Koontz
The Monsters of Templeton
(16.6K)
The Monsters of Temp...
by Lauren Groff
Hemlock
(9.8K)
Hemlock
by Kathleen Peacock

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.