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China Was The Most Optimistic Place I'd Ever Been. Everybody I Met Was Pretty Much Convinced That Their Children Would Have It Better Than Their Parents Had Had It. It Was Like Being In America In The 1950's, With This Deep Optimism About The Future Because Everything Was Getting Better, And That Fascinated Me.

-Neil Gaiman

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China Was The Most

Neil Gaiman

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China Was The Most Optimistic Place I'd Ever Been. Everybody I Met Was Pretty Much Convinced That Their Children Would Have It Better Than Their Parents Had Had It. It Was Like Being In America In The 1950's, With This Deep Optimism About The Future Because Everything Was Getting Better, And That Fascinated Me.

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Even Nothing Cannot Last Forever.

Truly Life Is Wasted On The Living.

We Do What We Do, Because Of Who We Are. If We Did Otherwise, We Would Not Be Ourselves.

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A Library Is A Place That Is A Repository Of Information And Gives Every Citizen Equal Access To It. That Includes Health Information. And Mental Health Information. It's A Community Space. It's A Place Of Safety, A Haven From The World.

He Was Having More Fun Than A Barrelful Of Monkeys.* *several Years Earlier Spider Had Actually Been Tremendously Disappointed By A Barrelful Of Monkeys. It Had Done Nothing He Had Considered Particularly Entertaining, Apart From Emit Interesting Noises, And Eventually, Once The Noises Had Stopped And The Monkeys Were No Longer Doing Anything At All—except Possibly On An Organic Level—had Needed To Be Disposed Of In The Dead Of Night.

Even If Your Goose Habitually Lays Golden Eggs, It Will Still Be Cooked.

There's None So Blind As Those Who Will Not Listen.

When Most People Said "i'm Psychic, You See," They Meant "i Have An Overactive But Unoriginal Imagination/wear Black Nail Varnish/talk To My Budgie;" When Anathema Said It, It Sounded As Though She Was Admitting To A Hereditary Disease Which She'd Much Prefer Not To Have.

Bod Was Thrilled. He Imagined A Future In Which He Could Read Everything, In Which All Stories Could Be Opened And Discovered.

Now Coraline," Said Miss Spink, "what's Your Name?" "coraline," Said Coraline. "and We Don't Know Each Other, Do We?" Coraline Looked At The Thin Young Woman With Black Button Eyes And Shook Her Head Slowly.

In Reality The World Is Made Of Thousands Of Groups Of About Five Hundred People, All Of Whom Will Spend Their Lives Bumping Into Each Other, Trying To Avoid Each Other, And Discovering Each Other In The Same Unlikely Teashop In Vancouver. There Is An Unavoidability To This Process. It's Not Even Coincidence. It's Just The Way The World Works, With No Regard For Individuals Or Propriety.

Going Off The Grid Is Always Good For Me. It's The Way That I've Started Books And Finished Books And Gotten Myself Out Of Deadline Dooms And Things.

Everything Here Is So Weak, Little Girl. Everything Breaks So Easily. They Want Such Simple Things.

I Finally Made Friends With My Father When I Entered My Twenties. We Had So Little In Common When I Was A Boy, And I Am Certain I Had Been A Disappointment To Him. He Did Not Ask For A Child With A Book, Off In Its Own World. He Wanted A Son Who Did What He Had Done; Swam And Boxed And Played Rugby, And Drove Cars At Speed With Abandon And Joy, But That Was Not What He Wound Up With.

Perhaps This Is The Ultimate Freedom, Eh, Dreamlord? The Freedom To Leave.

Ultimate Freedom

Writers May Be Solitary But They Also Tend To Flock Together: They Like Being Solitary Together.

He Had Gone Beyond The World Of Metaphor And Simile Into The Place Of Things That Are, And It Was Changing Him.

I Am Not By Nature The Kind Of Creator Who Is Transgressive In Order To Be Transgressive.

Well Meaning Adults Can Easily Destroy A Child's Love Of Reading - Do Not Discourage Children From Reading Because You Feel They're Reading The Wrong Thing. There Is No Such Thing As The Wrong Thing To Be Reading And No Bad Fiction For Kids.

You People Always Hold Onto Old Identities, Old Faces And Masks, Long After They've Served Their Purpose. But You've Got To Learn To Throw Things Away Eventually.

All Fiction Is A Process Of Imagining: Whatever You Write, In Whatever Genre Or Medium, Your Task Is To Make Things Up Convincingly And Interestingly And New.

I Love The Auditioning Process. I Love Working With The Technical Guys. I Absolutely Love The Editing Room. That Was Completely Fascinating To Me, Working With An Editor In Crafting The Thing Into Something You Had In Your Head.

All Bookshelves Are Magical.

I Thought, I'm Going To Die. And, Thinking That, I Was Determined To Live.

A Library Is A Place That Is A Repository Of Information And Gives Every Citizen Equal Access To It.

The Comic Convention Itself Tends To Come Second To The Giant Announcements In Hall H And The Movies And The Tv. So I Think It's Always Good To Remind People That There Is A Wonderful Comic Convention Going On.

The Thin Girl Was Gulping Down One Of Richard's Bananas In What Was, Richard Reflected, The Least Erotic Display Of Banana-eating He Had Ever Seen.

That Is The Eternal Folly Of Man. To Be Chasing After The Sweet Flesh, Without Realizing That It Is Simply A Pretty Cover For The Bones.

None Of Us Exist In A World That Is The Same World That Any Of The Rest Of Us Live In. The World That's Important Is The World Behind Each Of Our Eyes, Which Is Something That None Of The Rest Of Us Can Access.

Stories You Read When You're The Right Age Never Quite Leave You. You May Forget Who Wrote Them Or What The Story Was Called. Sometimes You'll Forget Precisely What Happened, But If A Story Touches You It Will Stay With You, Haunting The Places In Your Mind That You Rarely Ever Visit.

Now You People Have Names. That's Because You Don't Know Who You Are. We Know Who We Are, So We Don't Need Names.

You Have A Very Open Relationship With Your Fans." "yes. We Have An Open Relationship. Obviously They Can See Other Authors If They Want, And I Can See Other Readers.

Open Relationship

Words Can Wound, And Wounds Can Heal.

I Suspect There Are Two Kinds Of Novelists. Those Who Have A Point Of View And Have Something To Say And Then Write A Novel In Order To Say That Thing, And Those Of Us Who Write The Book In Order To Find Out What We Think About That Thing.

We...we Could Be Friends.' We Could Be Rare Specimens Of An Exotic Breed Of Dancing African Elephants, But We're Not. At Least, I'm Not.

Be Wise, Because The World Needs More Wisdom. And If You Cannot Be Wise, Pretend To Be Someone Who Is Wise, And Then Just Behave Like They Would.

Sometimes The Way To Do What You Hope To Do Will Be Clear Cut, And Sometimes It Will Be Almost Impossible To Decide Whether Or Not You Are Doing The Correct Thing, Because You'll Have To Balance Your Goals And Hopes With Feeding Yourself, Paying Debts, Finding Work, Settling For What You Can Get.

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You're A Big One,[...] A Tall Drink Of Water, But I Got To Tell You, You Don't Look Too Bright. I Got A Son, Stupid As A Man Who Bought His Stupid At A Two-for-one Sale, And You Remind Me Of Him.

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Talk Is Free But The Wise Man Chooses When To Spend His Words.

When You Reach The Little House, The Place Your Journey Started, You Will Recognize It, Although It Will Seem Much Smaller Than You Remember. Walk Up The Path, And Through The Garden Gate You Never Saw Before But Once. And Then Go Home. Or Make A Home. And Rest.

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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.

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Go, And Make Interesting Mistakes, Make Amazing Mistakes, Make Glorious And Fantastic Mistakes. Break Rules. Leave The World More Interesting For Your Being Here.

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Encyclopedia Britannica

Here Are Your Instructions, Crowley. And Suddenly He Knew. He Hated That. They Could Just As Easily Have Told Him, They Didn't Suddenly Have To Drop Chilly Knowledge Straight Into His Brain.

The House Smelled Musty And Damp, And A Little Sweet, As If It Were Haunted By The Ghosts Of Long-dead Cookies.

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I Hope That In This Year To Come, You Make Mistakes. Because If You Are Making Mistakes...you're Doing Something.

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So, Having Found A Lady, Could You Not Have Come To Her Aid, Or Left Her Alone? Why Drag Her Into Your Foolishness?' 'love,' He Explained. She Looked At Him With Eyes The Blue Of The Sky. 'i Hope You Choke On It,' She Said, Flatly.

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You Don't Get Heaven Or Hell. Do You Know The Only Reward You Get For Being Batman? You Get To Be Batman.

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A Story Only Matters, I Suspect, To The Extent That The People In The Story Change.

Crowley Had Been Extremely Impressed With The Warranties Offered By The Computer Industry, And Had In Fact Sent A Bundle Below To The Department That Drew Up The Immortal Soul Agreements, With A Yellow Memo Form Attached Just Saying: "learn, Guys..."

I Lived In Books More Than I Lived Anywhere Else.

It Is A Fool's Prerogative To Utter Truths That No One Else Will Speak.

It Is Not That I Was Credulous, Simply That I Belived In All Things Dark And Dangerous. It Was Part Of My Young Creed That The Night Was Full Of Ghosts And Witches, Hungry And Flapping And Dressed Completely In Black.

It's Easy, There's A Trick To It, You Do It Or You Die.

Break Rules. Leave The World More Interesting For Your Being Here.

Take What You Have Learned, And Move On.

I'm Willing To Make A Fool Out Of Myself In Public. I'm Also Willing To Make Those Mistakes That You're Going To Make The First Time You Go Out, So Hopefully The Next Time It Will Be Better.

It Doesn't Matter That I Can't Remember The Details Any Longer: Death Happened To Her. Death Happens To All Of Us.

It's Not What I'd Want For At My Funeral. When I Die, I Just Want Them To Plant Me Somewhere Warm. And Then When The Pretty Women Walk Over My Grave I Would Grab Their Ankles, Like In That Movie.

25 And The Lord Spake Unto The Angel That Guarded The Eastern Gate, Saying 'where Is The Flaming Sword That Was Given Unto Thee?' 26 And The Angel Said, 'i Had It Here Only A Moment Ago, I Must Have Put It Down Some Where, Forget My Own Head Next.' 27 And The Lord Did Not Ask Him Again.

I Thought I Was Your Destination. Looks Like I Was Just Another Stop On The Line.

Read The Books You Love, Tell People About Authors You Like, And Don’t Worry About It.

Human Beings Do Not Relate To Written Words In The Same Way That They Will Relate To Spoken Words. They Do Not Relate To Music In The Same Way That They Do To Pictures. It's All Different Parts Of Our Head, Different Parts Of Our Minds Processing This.

Shadow Looked Down At The Girl On The Table. “what Happened To Her?” He Asked. “poor Taste In Boyfriends,” Said Jacquel. “it’s Not Always Fatal.

You Know The Best Thing About Aeroplanes? Apart From The Peanuts In Little Silver Bags, I Mean. It's Looking Out Of The Windows At The Clouds And Thinking Maybe I Could Go Walking In There. Maybe It's A Special Place Where Everything's Okay. Sometimes I Do Go Walking In The Clouds But It's Just Cold And Wet And Empty. But When You Look Out Of A Plane It's A Special World... And I Like It.

I Don't Believe In "writer's Block". I Try And Deal With Getting Stuck By Having More Than One Thing To Work On At A Time. And By Knowing That Even A Hundred Bad Words That Didn't Exist Before Is Forward Progress.

There Were Faces At The Windows And Words Written In Blood; Deep In The Crypt A Lonely Ghoul Crunched On Something That Might Once Have Been Alive; Forked Lightnings Slashed The Ebony Night; The Faceless Were Walking; All Was Right With The World

I Realized The Other Day That About The Only Author I Genuinely Read For Pure Pleasure Is One Of The Worst Authors In The World, A Guy Called Harry Stephen Keeler, A Long Dead American Mystery Writer. He Was Probably The Greatest Bad Writer America Ever Produced.

We Have An Obligation To Read Aloud To Our Children. To Read Them Things They Enjoy. To Read To Them Stories We Are Already Tired Of. To Do The Voices, To Make It Interesting, And Not To Stop Reading To Them Just Because They Learn To Read To Themselves. Use Reading-aloud Time As Bonding Time, As Time When No Phones Are Being Checked, When The Distractions Of The World Are Put Aside.

I Could Be Blindfolded And Dropped Into The Deepest Ocean And I Would Know Where To Find You. I Could Be Buried A Hundred Miles Underground And I Would Know Where You Are.

Daisy Looked Up At Him With The Kind Of Expression That Jesus Might Have Given Someone Who Had Just Explained That He Was Probably Allergic To Bread And Fishes, So Could He Possibly Do Him A Quick Chicken Salad.

In My Dream, It Was The Tongue Of What Is, And Anything Spoken In It Becomes Real, Because Nothing Said In That Language Can Be A Lie. It Is The Most Basic Building Brick Of Everything.

And I Thought, Eight Years Ago, When I Began Carefully Charting The Progress Of American Gods, Nervously Dipping My Toes Into The Waters Of Blogging, Would I Have Imagined A Future In Which, Instead Of Recording The Vicissitudes Of Bringing A Book Into The World, I Would Be Writing About Not-even-interestingly Missing Cups Of Cold Camomile Tea? And I Thought, Yup. Sounds About Right. Happy Eighth Birthday, Blog.

Media. I Think I Have Heard Of Her. Isn't She The One Who Killed Her Children?

While Clothes Do Not, As The Saying Would Sometimes Have It, Make The Man, And Fine Feathers Do Not Make Fine Birds, Sometimes They Can Add A Certain Spice To A Recipe.

You Don’t Want To Ask After The Health Of Anyone, If You’re A Funeral Director. They Think Maybe You’re Scouting For Business.

I Hope The Strong Women Out There Aren't Quiet And They Don't Go Away, Because When People Attack You For Speaking, The Best Way To Drive Them Nuts Is To Smile And Carry On Speaking, Louder, More Wisely, More Intensely, More Articulately Than Ever.

The Secret To Writing Is Just To Write. Write Every Day. Never Stop Writing. Write On Every Surface You See; Write On People On The Street. When The Cops Come To Arrest You, Write On The Cops. Write On The Police Car. Write On The Judge. I'm In Jail Forever Now, And The Prison Cell Walls Are Completely Covered With My Writing, And I Keep Writing On The Writing I Wrote. That's My Method.

Stories Are Like Spiders, With All They Long Legs, And Stories Are Like Spiderwebs, Which Man Gets Himself All Tangled Up In But Which Look Pretty When You See Them Under A Leaf In The Morning Dew, And In The Elegant Way That They Connect To One Another, Each To Each.

We Are Small But We Are Many We Are Many We Are Small We Were Here Before You Rose We Will Be Here When You Fall

Children, As I Have Said, Use Back Ways And Hidden Paths, While Adults Take Roads And Official Paths.

Write. Finish Things. Get Them Published. Write Something Else While You're Waiting For Someone To Publish The First Thing.

I Watch My Heart Disappearing Into Her Rosebud Mouth. My Valentine's Jest Somehow Seems Less Funny.

A Flash Of Resentment. It's Hard Enough Being Alive, Trying To Survive In The World And Find Your Place In It, To Do The Things You Need To Do To Get By, Without Wondering If The Thing You Just Did, Whatever It Was, Was Worth Someone Having...if Not Died, Then Having Given Up Her Life. It Wasn't Fair. "life's Not Fair," Said Ginnie, As If I Had Spoken Aloud.

It May Help To Understand Human Affairs To Be Clear That Most Of The Great Triumphs And Tragedies Of History Are Caused, Not By People Being Fundamentally Good Or Fundamentally Bad, But By People Being Fundamentally People.

I Told You I Would Tell You My Names. This Is What They Call Me. I'm Called Glad-of-war, Grim, Raider, And Third. I Am One-eyed. I Am Called Highest, And True-guesser. I Am Grimnir, And I Am The Hooded One. I Am All-father, And I Am Gondlir Wand-bearer. I Have As Many Names As There Are Winds, As Many Titles As There Are Ways To Die. My Ravens Are Huginn And Muninn, Thought And Memory; My Wolves Are Freki And Geri; My Horse Is The Gallows.

That's Sexism, That Is. Going Around Giving People Girly Presents Just Because They're A Girl.

I Don't Think Immediate Tragedy Is A Very Good Source Of Art. It Can Be, But Too Often It's Raw And Painful And Un-dealt-with. Sometimes Art Can Be A Really Good Escape From The Intolerable, And A Good Place To Go When Things Are Bad, But That Doesn't Mean You Have To Write Directly About The Bad Thing; Sometimes You Need To Let Time Pass, And Allow The Thing That Hurts To Get Covered With Layers, And Then You Take It Out, Like A Pearl, And You Make Art Out Of It.

Life Is A Rock, But The Radio Rolled Me Over.

I Mean, Maybe I Am Crazy. I Mean, Maybe. But If This Is All There Is, Then I Don't Want To Be Sane.

People Talk About Books That Write Themselves, And It's A Lie. Books Don't Write Themselves. It Takes Thought And Research And Backache And Notes And More Time And More Work Than You'd Believe.

We Owe It To Each Other To Tell Stories.

"some Things May Change," Said Wednesday, Abruptly. "people, However... People Stay The Same."

Some Things Are Too Big To Be Seen; Some Emotions Are Too Huge To Be Felt.

There May Be A Parallel Between Woodcuts And Radio; Radio Plays Are A Living Art Form Everywhere Except The Usa.

I Miss You', He Admitted. 'i'm Here', She Said. 'that's When I Miss You Most. When You're Here. When You Aren't Here, When You're Just A Ghost Of The Past Or A Dream From Another Life, It's Easier Then.

I Hope You'll Make Mistakes. If You're Making Mistakes, It Means You're Out There Doing Something.

I Still Love The Book-ness Of Books, The Smell Of Books: I Am A Book Fetishist—books To Me Are The Coolest And Sexiest And Most Wonderful Things There Are.

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.

Adults Should Not Weep, I Knew. They Did Not Have Mothers Who Would Comfort Them.

It Doesn't Matter That You Didn't Believe In Us," Said Mr. Ibis. "we Believed In You.

Note For Americans And Other Aliens: Milton Keynes Is A New City Approximately Halfway Between London And Birmingham. It Was Built To Be Modern, Efficient, Healthy, And, All In All, A Pleasant Place To Live. Many Britons Find This Amusing.

But He Did Not Understand The Price. Mortals Never Do. They Only See The Prize, Their Heart's Desire, Their Dream... But The Price Of Getting What You Want, Is Getting What You Once Wanted.

I Suppose I Could Claim That I Had Suspected That The World Was A Cheap And Shoddy Sham, A Bad Cover For Something Deeper And Weirder And Infinitely More Strange, And That, In Some Way, I Already Know The Truth. But I Think That's Just How The World Has Always Been. And Even Now I Know The Truth, The World Still Seems Cheap And Shoddy. Different World, Different Shoddy, But That's How It Feels.

You Don't Get Explanations In Real Life. You Just Get Moments That Are Absolutely, Utterly, Inexplicably Odd.

Life - And I Don't Suppose I'm The First To Make This Comparison - Is A Disease: Sexually Transmitted, And Invariably Fatal.

I Noticed A Long Time Ago That The Universe Rewards Belief Systems. It Doesn't Really Matter What You Believe - It'll Be There And Waiting For You If You Go And Look For It. Decide The Universe Is, Say, Run By Secret Enormous Teddy Bears, And I Can Guarantee You'll Immediately Start Running Across Evidence That This Is True.

I Wanted To Write Something That Would Be A Comedy In The Sense Of Making People Feel Happier When They Finish It Than They Did When Began It.

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.

What Makes You Think I'm Giving You A Ride?” “because I'm A Damsel In Distress,” She Said. “and You Are A Knight In Whatever. A Really Dirty Car.

He Had Read Books, Newspapers And Magazines. He Knew That If You Ran Away You Sometimes Met Bad People Who Did Bad Things To You; But He Had Also Read Fairy Tales, So He Knew That There Were Kind People Out There, Side By Side With The Monsters.

There Are People Who Think That Things That Happen In Fiction Do Not Really Happen. These People Are Wrong.

The Things That Really Change The World, According To Chaos Theory, Are The Tiny Things. A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings In The Amazonian Jungle, And Subsequently A Storm Ravages Half Of Europe.

Potentially Evil. Potentially Good, Too, I Suppose. Just This Huge Powerful Potentiality Waiting To Be Shaped.

I Walk Across The Dreaming Sands Under The Pale Moon: Through The Dreams Of Countries And Cities, Past Dreams Of Places Long Gone And Times Beyond Recall.

So The Day Became One Of Waiting, Which Was, He Knew, A Sin: Moments Were To Be Experienced; Waiting Was A Sin Against Both The Time That Was Still To Come And The Moments One Was Currently Disregarding.

I Have World Class Photographic Red-eye Pretty Much All The Time. As A General Rule, If It's Taken With A Flash, I Look Like I Am Possessed By The Blazing Forces Of Darkness, At Least In The Eye Department.

Be Boring, Knowing Everything. You Have To Give All That Stuff Up If You're Going To Muck About Here.

Knowing Everything

The Biggest Difference Between England And America Is That England Has History, While America Has Geography.

England And America

Television And Cinema Were All Very Well, But These Stories Happened To Other People. The Stories I Found In Books Happened Inside My Head. I Was, In Some Way, There. It's The Magic Of Fiction: You Take The Words And You Build Them Into Worlds.

And Weren't, When You Got Right Down To It, Particularly Evil. Human Beings Mostly Aren't. They Just Get Carried Away By New Ideas, Like Dressing Up In Jackboots And Shooting People, Or Dressing Up In White Sheets And Lynching People, Or Dressing Up In Tie-dye Jeans And And Playing Guitar At People. Offer People A New Creed With A Costume And Their Hearts And Minds Will Follow.

I Will Be A Wise And Tolerant Monarch, Dispencing Justice Fairly, And Only Setting Nightmares To Rip Out The Winds Of The Evil And The Wicked. Or Just Anybody That I Don't Like.

Leave No Path Untaken.

I Looked At The World Of Books And Just Went, Oh My Gosh, If I'm Writing Novels, I'm On The Same Shelves As Jane Austen And Charles Dickens And Petronius - Whereas With Comics, They've Only Been Doing Them For A Hundred Years, And There's Stuff That Nobody's Done Before. I Think I'll Go Off And Do Some Of The Stuff No One's Ever Done Before.

Often You Will Discover That The Harder You Work, And The More Wisely You Work, The Luckier You Get. But There Is Luck, And It Helps.

There Was Only One Guy In The Whole Bible Jesus Ever Personally Promised A Place With Him In Paradise. Not Peter, Not Paul, Not Any Of Those Guys. He Was A Convicted Thief, Being Executed. So Don't Knock The Guys On Death Row. Maybe They Know Something You Don't.

I Knowed A Man In Paphlagonia Who'd Swallow A Live Snake Every Morning, When He Got Up. He Used To Say, He Was Certain Of One Thing, That Nothing Worse Would Happen To Him All Day. 'course They Made Him Eat A Bowlful Of Hairy Centipedes Before They Hung Him, So Maybe That Claim Was A Bit Presumptive.

I Wanted To Be An Author As Far Back As I Can Remember, Mixed With Occasional Bouts Of Wanting To Be A Werewolf When I Grew Up. But Mostly, When I Daydreamed, It Was About Being An Author.

Goodbyes Are Overrated.

If You Are Pointing Out One Of The Things A Story Is About, Then You Are Very Probably Right; If You Are Pointing Out The Only Thing A Story Is About You Are Very Probably Wrong - Even If You're The Author.

I Just Want You To Know,' Said The Girl, Coldly, 'that Whoever You Are And Whatever You Intend With Me, I Shall Give You No Aid Of Any Kind, Nor Shall I Assist You, And I Shall Do Whatever Is In My Power To Frustrate Your Plans And Devices.' And Then She Added, With Feeling, 'idiot.

The Only Advice I Can Give You Is What You're Telling Yourself. Only, Maybe You're Too Scared To Listen.

When The First Living Thing Existed, I Was There Waiting. When The Last Living Thing Dies, My Job Will Be Finished. I'll Put The Chairs On The Tables, Turn Out The Lights And Lock The Universe Behind Me When I Leave.

You Mourn, For It Is Proper To Mourn. But Your Grief Serves You; You Do Not Become A Slave To Grief. You Bid The Dead Farewell, And You Continue.

I'll Agonize Over Sentences. Mostly Because You're Trying To Create Specific Effects With Sentences, And Because There Are A Number Of Different Voices In The Book.

You Get What Anybody Gets - You Get A Lifetime.

Inspirational Life

His Name Is Marcus: He Is Four And A Half And Possesses That Deep Gravity And Seriousness That Only Small Children And Mountain Gorillas Have Ever Been Able To Master.

You Attend The Funeral, You Bid The Dead Farewell. You Grieve. Then You Continue With Your Life. And At Times The Fact Of Her Absence Will Hit You Like A Blow To The Chest, And You Will Weep. But This Will Happen Less And Less As Time Goes On. She Is Dead. You Are Alive. So Live.

I Hope That In This Year To Come, You Make Mistakes. Because If You Are Making Mistakes, Then You Are Making New Things, Trying New Things, Learning, Living, Pushing Yourself, Changing Yourself, Changing Your World. You're Doing Things You've Never Done Before, And More Importantly, You're Doing Something.

I Have Always Felt That Violence Was The Last Refuge Of The Incompetent, And Empty Threats The Last Sanctuary Of The Terminally Inept.

Sometimes I Suspect That We Build Our Traps Ourselves, Then We Back Into Them, Pretending Amazement The While.

Black As Night, Sweet As Sin.

I Don't Want Whatever I Want. Nobody Does. Not Really. What Kind Of Fun Would It Be If I Just Got Everything I Ever Wanted Just Like That, And It Didn't Mean Anything? What Then?

The First Author I Remember Being Obsessed By, Actually Realizing 'i Like The Way He Writes And I Like The Way He Tells Stories,' Was C.s. Lewis And The 'narnia' Books.

If You Can't Eat It, Drink It, Smoke It, Or Snort It... Then F*ck It!

Every Hour Wounds. The Last One Kills.

Once, I Was A Poet, And, Like All Poets, I Spent Too Long In The Kingdom Of Dreams.

You Know What The Really Scary Thing About Bad Dreams? It's That Something's Going On In Your Head, And You Can't Control It. I Mean, It's Like There's These Bad Worlds Inside You. But It's Just You... It's Like You're Betraying Yourself.

You're A Poem?' I Repeated. She Chewed Her Lower Lip. 'if You Want. I Am A Poem, Or I Am A Pattern, Or A Race Of People Whose Whose World Was Swallowed By The Sea.' 'isn't It Hard To Be Three Things At The Same Time?' 'what's Your Name?' 'enn.' 'so You Are Enn,' She Said. 'and You Are A Male. And You Are A Biped. Is It Hard To Be Three Things At The Same Time?

There Are Four Simple Ways For The Observant To Tell Mr. Croup And Mr. Vandemar Apart: First, Mr. Vandemar Is Two And A Half Heads Taller Than Mr. Croup; Second, Mr. Croup Has Eyes Of A Faded China Blue, While Mr. Vandemar's Eyes Are Brown; Third, While Mr. Vandemar Fashioned The Rings He Wears On His Right Hand Out Of The Skulls Of Four Ravens, Mr. Croup Has No Obvious Jewelery; Fourth, Mr. Croup Likes Words, While Mr. Vandemar Is Always Hungry. Also, They Look Nothing At All Alike.

There Are Stories Within Stories, Whispered In The Quiet Of The Night, Shouted Above The Roar Of The Day, And Played Out Between Lovers And Enemies, Strangers And Friends. But All Are Fragile Things Made Of Just Twenty-six Letters Arranged And Re-arranged To Form Tales And Imaginings Which Will Dazzle Your Senses, Haunt Your Imagination And Move You To The Very Depths Of Your Soul.

Strangers And Friends

They Were Not My Friends, After All. They Were Just The People I Went To School With.

A Good Writer Should Be Able To Write Comedic Work That Made You Laugh, And Scary Stuff That Made You Scared, And Fantasy Or Science Fiction That Imbued You With A Sense Of Wonder, And Mainstream Journalism That Gave You Clear And Concise Information In A Way That You Wanted It.

Watch Out For That Pedestrian!" "it's On The Street, It Knows The Risks It's Taking!

I Want To Go Home. Then He Mentally Underlined The Last Sentence Three Times, Rewrote It In Huge Letters In Red Ink, And Circled It Before Putting A Number Of Exclamation Marks Next To It In His Mental Margin.

Exclamation Marks

It’s An Artist’s Job To Show People The World They Live In. We Hold Up Mirrors.

Never Mind. There. For Good Or Bad. It's Done.

Dreams Shape The World

What Do Stars Do? They Shine.

My Guiltiest Pleasure Is Harry Stephen Keeler. He May Have Been The Greatest Bad Writer America Has Ever Produced. Or Perhaps The Worst Great Writer. I Do Not Know. There Are Few Faults You Can Accuse Him Of That He Is Not Guilty Of. But I Love Him.

She Really Was Pretty, For A Grown-up Person, But When You Are Seven, Beauty Is An Abstraction, Not An Imperative. I Wonder What I Would Have Done If She Had Smiled At Me Like That Now: Whether I Would Have Handed My Mind Or My Heart Or My Identify To Her For The Asking, As My Father Did.

It's Only A World, After All, And They're Just Sand Grains In The Desert, Worlds.

She Seems So Cool, So Focused, So Quiet, Yet Her Eyes Remain Fixed Upon The Horizon. You Think You Know All There Is To Know About Her Immediately Upon Meeting Her, But Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong. Passion Flows Through Her Like A River Of Blood. She Only Looked Away For A Moment, And The Mask Slipped, And You Fell. All Your Tomorrows Start Here.

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