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I Believe That Life Is A Game, That Life Is A Cruel Joke, And That Life Is What Happens When You're Alive And That You Might As Well Lie Back And Enjoy It.

-Neil Gaiman

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I Believe That Life

Neil Gaiman

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I Believe That Life Is A Game, That Life Is A Cruel Joke, And That Life Is What Happens When You're Alive And That You Might As Well Lie Back And Enjoy It.

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Do You Know Why I Stopped Being Delight, My Brother? I Do. There Are Things Not In Your Book. There Are Paths Outside This Garden.

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

I Believe That All Men Are Just Overgrown Boys With Deep Problems Communicating.

Also, I've Already Won All The Awards.

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.

You See, The Outcome Of The Battle Is Unimportant. What Matters Is The Chaos, And The Slaughter.

I Personally Have A Great Deal Of Respect For Readers. I Have A Great Deal Of Respect For The Human Race. I Think Most People Can Tell The Difference Between Fiction And Fact. I Think That The Action Of Writing About Something Does Not Condone It. The Best Thing I Can Ever Hope To Do Is Provide Good Questions, And I Think I Do That. I Hope I Do.

It Has Always Been The Prerogative Of Children And Half-wits To Point Out That The Emperor Has No Clothes. But The Half-wit Remains A Half-wit, And The Emperor Remains An Emperor.

Black As Night, Sweet As Sin.

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.

Classic Authors Should Be Older Than I Am, And Wiser, And On-top Of All Their Deadlines.

Too Soon, The Sun Will Rise.

If You Read Enough Lionel Fanthorpe, Your Brain Starts To Turn To Jelly And Just Dribbles Out Of Your Ears.

I Came To The Conclusion That In Comedy, Everybody Gets What They Need, Whereas In Horror, Everybody Gets What They Deserve. I Decided That At The End Of The Day, I Was Going To Give Everybody What They Needed.

The End Of The Day

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

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.

I Love Cgi If It's Invisible. I Don't Like It When It's There And Obvious.

Sexton: I Think The Whole World's Gone Mad. Death: Uh-uh. It's Always Like This. You Probably Just Don't Get Out Enough.

I Am Amiable. Vague. Puzzled. Messy-haired.

Where Does Contagion End And Art Begin?

In Many Ways, It Was Much, Much Harder To Get The First Book Contract. The Hardest Thing Probably Overall Has Been Learning Not To Trust People, Publicists And So Forth, Implicitly.

Oh, Monsters Are Scared. That's Why They're Monsters.

Books Are The Way That We Communicate With The Dead. The Way That We Learn Lessons From Those Who Are No Longer With Us, That Humanity Has Built On Itself, Progressed, Made Knowledge Incremental Rather Than Something That Has To Be Relearned, Over And Over. There Are Tales That Are Older Than Most Countries, Tales That Have Long Outlasted The Cultures And The Buildings In Which They Were First Told.

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.

Coraline Opened The Box Of Chocolates. The Dog Looked At Them Longingly. "would You Like One?" She Asked The Little Dog. "yes, Please," Whispered The Dog. "only Not Toffee Ones. They Make Me Drool." "i Thought Chocolates Weren't Very Good For Dogs," She Said, Remembering Something Miss Forcible Had Once Told Her. "maybe Where You Come From," Whispered The Little Dog. "here, It's All We Eat.

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.

Go Get Your Heart Broken.

You Know You Can Set Fire To The Capacity To Say.

Dreams Shape The World

When Angels Go Bad They Are Worse Than Anyone Else. Remember Lucifer Used To Be An Angel.

As Far As I'm Concerned, The Entire Reason For Becoming A Writer Is Not Having To Get Up In The Morning.

You Get What Anybody Gets - You Get A Lifetime.

Inspirational Life

I've Been Inspired By Dreams - I've Even Stolen Scenes Or Images Or Characters From Them.

With American Gods I Was Trying Very, Very Consciously - There Was A Level At Which It Was A Little Like Trying To Write A Novel In French - You Know, "this Novel Is To Be Written In American."

I Like Horror, But I Tend To Like It As Seasoning. I'd Get Very Bored If I Was Told I Had To Write A Horror Novel. I'd Love To Write A Novel With Horror Elements, But Too Much, And It Doesn't Taste Of Anything Else.

Do The Stuff That Only You Can Do. The Urge, Starting Out, Is To Copy. And That's Not A Bad Thing. Most Of Us Only Find Our Own Voices After We've Sounded Like A Lot Of Other People. But The One Thing That You Have That Nobody Else Has Is You. Your Voice, Your Mind, Your Story, Your Vision. So Write And Draw And Build And Play And Dance And Live As Only You Can. The Moment That You Feel That, Just Possibly, You're Walking Down The Street Naked, Exposing Too Much Of Your Heart And Your Mind And What Exists On The Inside, Showing Too Much Of Yourself. That's The Moment You May Be Starting To Get It Right.

Let Us Begin This Letter, This Prelude To An Encounter, Formally, As A Declaration, In The Old-fashioned Way: I Love You. You Do Not Know Me (although You Have Seen Me, Smiled At Me). I Know You (although Not So Well As I Would Like. I Want To Be There When Your Eyes Flutter Open In The Morning, And You See Me, And You Smile. Surely This Would Be Paradise Enough?). So I Do Declare Myself To You Now, With Pen Set To Paper. I Declare It Again: I Love You.

Touched By Her Fingers, The Two Surviving Chocolate People Copulate Desperately, Losing Themselves In A Melting Frenzy Of Lust, Spending The Last Of Their Brief Borrowed Lives In A Spasm Of Raspberry Cream And Fear.

It Is Good For Children To Find Themselves Facing The Elements Of A Fairy Tale - They Are Well-equipped To Deal With These

As A Kid I Would Get My Parents To Drop Me Off At My Local Library On Their Way To Work During The Summer Holidays And I Would Walk Home At Night. For Several Years I Read The Children's Library Until I Finished The Children's Library. Then I Moved Into The Adult Library And Slowly Worked My Way Through Them.

There Are So Many Places We Have Not Yet Seen. So Many People Still To Meet.

I’m An Author. We Don’t Want To Lead. We Don’t Need To Follow. We Stay Home And Make Stuff Up And Write It Down And Send It Out Into The World, And Get Inside People’s Heads. Perhaps We Change The World And Perhaps We Don’t. We Never Know. We Just Make Stuff Up.

Nobody's American," Said Wednesday. "not Originally. That's My Point.

Growing Up, I Took So Many Cues From Books. They Taught Me Most Of What I Knew About What People Did, About How To Behave. They Were My Teachers And My Advisers.

Discontent Is A Good Thing: Discontented People Can Modify And Improve Their Worlds, Leave Them Better, Leave Them Different.

He Was No Longer Scared Of What Tomorrow Might Bring Because Yesterday Has Brought It.

I Don't Necessarily Think Stories Have Functions Any More Than Diamonds Have Functions, Or The Sky Has A Function... Stories Exist. They Keep Us Sane, I Think. We Tell Each Other Stories, We Believe Stories. I Love Watching The Slow Rise Of The Urban Legend. They're The Stories That We Use To Explain Ourselves To Ourselves.

Things Need Not Have Happened To Be True. Tales And Adventures Are The Shadow Truths That Will Endure When Mere Facts Are Dust And Ashes And Forgotten.

When You Die, They Can Make You Into Diamonds Now. It’s Scientific. That’s How I Want To Be Remembered. I Want To Shine.

Childhood Memories Are Sometimes Covered And Obscured Beneath The Things That Come Later, Like Childhood Toys Forgotten At The Bottom Of A Crammed Adult Closet, But They Are Never Lost For Good.

Like Some Kind Of Particularly Tenacious Vampire The Short Story Refuses To Die, And Seems At This Point In Time To Be A Wonderful Length For Our Generation.

For A Moment He Thought She Was About To Hit Him, Which Would Have Been Bad, Or Even Start Crying, Which Would Have Been Much, Much Worse.

You See With Your Eyes. This Means You Can Be Misled By Charm, By Outward Appearance. By Webs Of Glamour, By Surface Pretences. I Do Not See With My Eyes. I See Good And I See Evil. Nothing Else.

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.

I Can Get Away Before The Storm Hits. Away From A World In Which Opiates Have Become The Religion Of The Masses.

Everything That Is,casts A Shadow

"death's A Capricious Thing, Innit?" "yes. Yes, She Is."

Writing Is Flying In Dreams. When You Remember. When You Can. When It Works. It's That Easy.

But How Can You Walk Away From Something And Still Come Back To It?

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

Knowing Everything

So You Used To Know Everything?" She Wrinkled Her Nose. "everybody Did. I Told You. It's Nothing Special, Knowing How Things Work. And You Really Do Have To Give It All Up If You Want To Play." "to Play What?" "this," She Said. She Waved At The House And The Sky And The Impossible Full Moon And The Skeins And The Shawls And Clusters Of Bright Stars.

I Think...that I Would Rather Recollect A Life Mis-spent On Fragile Things Than Spent Avoiding Moral Debt.

"ocean" Is More About ... Powerlessness And Hopelessness. When We're Very Small We Can't Actually Do Anything - We Have No Say In What Happens, We Have No Money Or Resources, We Sometimes Have No Idea What's Going On.

People Populate The Darkness; With Ghosts, With Gods, With Electrons, With Tales.

I Am Selfish, Private And Easily Bored. Will This Be A Problem?

I Found English To Be A Sort Of Thomas Hardy Aversion Therapy.

If You Are Protected From Dark Things Then You Have No Protection Of, Knowledge Of, Or Understanding Of Dark Things When They Show Up.

I Used To Get My Best Ideas From Being Bored, And Now, If I Even Think I'm Being Faintly Bored, I Have Two Million Twitter Followers I Can Engage With. It's Great, But I Also Think It's Important To Be Able To Let Your Thoughts Flow And Percolate.

It Is Neither Fair Nor Unfair, Nobody Owens. It Simply Is

Put One Word After Another. Find The Right Word, Put It Down.

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.

I Know That The Way To Be A Really Successful Writer Is To Write The Same Kind Of Book Over And Over Again. Find The Kind Of Thing That People Like And Just Write One Of Those Over And Over Again. I Don't Do That. I Just Keep Doing Different Things.

I Do Not Believe That All Books Will Or Should Migrate Onto Screens: As Douglas Adams Once Pointed Out To Me, More Than 20 Years Before The Kindle Turned Up, A Physical Book Is Like A Shark. Sharks Are Old: There Were Sharks In The Ocean Before The Dinosaurs. And The Reason There Are Still Sharks Around Is That Sharks Are Better At Being Sharks Than Anything Else Is.

Some Of Us Claim That He Was A Messiah, And Some Think That He Was Just A Man With Very Special Powers. But That Misses The Point. Whatever He Was, He Changed The World.

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.

A Novel Seemed The Easiest Way To Get What I Had Had In My Head Into The Inside Of Other People's Heads. Books Are Good That Way.

The Truth Is, It's Not The Idea, It's Never The Idea, It's Always What You Do With It.

Coming Over From England, I Was Awe-struck By What Americans Do At Halloween. I Find It Magnificent. In England, You Get The Occasional Fancy Dress Party.

Dreams Are Composed Of Many Things, My Son. Of Images And Hopes, Of Fears And Memories. Memories Of The Past, And Memories Of The Future.

He's Out Here, Somewhere, And He Wants You Dead,' She Said. 'him As Killed Your Family. Us In The Graveyard, We Wants You To Stay Alive. We Wants You To Surprise Us And Disappoint Us And Impress Us And Amaze Us. Come Home, Bod.

If You Go To Space, You'll Look Down And See No National Boundaries. You'll Never See The Gods People Are Killing Each Other Over, But They're Incredibly Real.

The Strangest Part Of Being So Well Known Is Definitely Getting A New Yorker Profile. It's A Wonderful, Strange Process, Like Seeing Yourself Through A Distorting Mirror.

Monsters Come In All Shapes And Sizes, Some Of Them Are Things People Are Scared Of. Some Of Them Are Things That Look Like Things People Used To Be Scared Of A Long Time Ago. Sometimes Monsters Are Things People Should Be Scared Of, But They Aren't.

The War Had Begun And Nobody Saw It. The Storm Was Lowering And Nobody Knew It.

Just Remember, What The French Say. No, Probably Not The French, They've Got A President Or Something. The Brits, Maybe, Or The Swedes. You Know What I Mean?" "no, Matthew. What Do They Say?" "the King Is Dead, That's What They Say. The King Is Dead. Long Live The King.

But Surely "argh" Is The Sound Of A Sort Of Strangulated Scream. "aargh" Is The Sound Of A Stabbing, Or A Falling Off A Cliff. "arr" Is, I Think, The Noise You're Looking For. It's The Noise Pirates Make When They Don't Have Anything Better To Do. "arr, Jim Lad" = Pirate Noise. "aargh, Jim Lad" = Sound Of Pirate Falling Off A Cliff.

If He Didn't Care About You, You Couldn't Upset Him.

They Could Not Truly Look Dead, Because They Did Not Ever Look Alive.

When Things Get Tough, This Is What You Should Do: Make Good Art. I'm Serious. Husband Runs Off With A Politician -- Make Good Art. Leg Crushed And Then Eaten By A Mutated Boa Constrictor -- Make Good Art. Irs On Your Trail -- Make Good Art. Cat Exploded -- Make Good Art. Someone On The Internet Thinks What You're Doing Is Stupid Or Evil Or It's All Been Done Before -- Make Good Art.

May Your Coming Year Be Filled With Magic And Dreams And Good Madness. I Hope You Read Some Fine Books And Kiss Someone Who Thinks You're Wonderful, And Don't Forget To Make Some Art -- Write Or Draw Or Build Or Sing Or Live As Only You Can. And I Hope, Somewhere In The Next Year, You Surprise Yourself.

Making Fiction For Children, Making Books For Children, Isn't Something You Do For Money. It's Something You Do Because What Children Read And Learn And See And Take In Changes Them And Forms Them, And They Make The Future. They Make The World We're Going To Wind Up In, The World That Will Be Here When We're Gone. Which Sounds Preachy (and Is More Than You Need For A Quotebyte) But It's True. I Want To Tell Kids Important Things, And I Want Them To Love Stories And Love Reading And Love Finding Things Out. I Want Them To Be Brave And Wise. So I Write For Them.

Suppose We Pick A Name For Him, Eh?" Caius Pompeius Stepped Over And Eyed The Child. "he Looks A Little Like My Proconsul, Marcus. We Could Call Him Marcus." Josiah Worthington Said, "he Looks More Like My Head Gardener, Stebbins. Not That I'm Suggesting Stebbins As A Name. The Man Drank Like A Fish." "he Looks Like My Nephew Harry," Said Mother Slaughter... "he Looks Like Nobody But Himself," Said Mrs.owens, Firmly. "he Looks Like Nobody." "then Nobody It Is," Said Silas. "nobody Owens.

The Best Thing About Doing A Signing Tour Is That Numbers Become Faces. I Got To Sign Books For Six Or Seven Thousand People, All Of Whom Were Dreadfully Nice. Everything Else, The Interviews, The Hotels, The Plane Travel, The Best-seller Lists, Even The Sushi, Gets Old Awfully Fast. Well, Maybe Not The Sushi.

Recounting The Strange Is Like Telling One's Dreams: One Can Communicate The Events Of A Dream, But Not The Emotional Content, The Way That A Dream Can Colour One's Entire Day.

Something Told Him That Something Was Coming To An End. Not The World, Exactly. Just The Summer. There Would Be Other Summers, But There Would Never Be One Like This. Ever Again.

They Were Having An Argument As Old And Comfortable As An Armchair, The Kind Of Argument That No One Ever Really Wins Or Loses But Which Can Go On Forever, If Both Parties Are Willing.

Now Me,” Said Mr. Vandemar. “what Number Am I Thinking Of?” “i Beg Your Pardon?” “what Number Am I Thinking Of?” Repeated Mr. Vandemar. “it’s Between One And A Lot,” He Added, Helpfully.

Never A Possession, Always The Possessor, With Skin As Pale As Smoke, And Eyes Tawny And Sharp As Yellow Wine: Desire Is Everything You Have Ever Wanted. Whoever You Are. Whatever You Are. Everything.

The Only Thing That Kept Me Going Was Stories. Stories Are Hope. They Take You Out Of Yourself For A Bit, And When You Get Dropped Back In, You're Different- You're Stronger, You've Seen More, You've Felt More. Stories Are Like Spiritual Currency.

It's Easier To Believe In Aliens Than In Gods.

She Was Also An Adult, And When Adults Fight Children, Adults Always Win.

For Love Is No Part Of The Dreamworld. Love Belongs To Desire, And Desire Is Always Cruel.

Chicago Happened Slowly, Like A Migraine. First They Were Driving Through Countryside, Then, Imperceptibly, The Occasional Town Became A Low Suburban Sprawl, And The Sprawl Became The City.

Remember Your Name. Do Not Lose Hope ---what You Seek Will Be Found.

Following Instructions

The Real World Has No Obligation To Be Convincing, So It Throws Up Some Very Weird Moments Sometimes.

You Shine Like A Beacon In A Dark World.

You’re Alive. That Means You Have Infinite Potential. You Can Do Anything, Make Anything, Dream Anything.

I Was The Kind Of Kid Whose Parents Would Drop Him Off At The Local Town Library On Their Way To Work, And I'd Go And Work My Way Through The Children's Area.

It Seemed To Coraline That It Was Crouching, And Staring Down At Her, As If It Were Not Really A House But Only The Idea Of A House—and The Person Who Had Had The Idea, She Was Certain, Was Not A Good Person.

I Was Not So Old That I Would Deny My Own Senses.

"only Write What You Know" Is Very Good Advice. I Do My Best To Stick To It. I Wrote About Gods And Dreams And America Because I Knew About Them. And I Wrote About What It's Like To Wander Into Faerie Because I Knew About That. I Wrote About Living Underneath London Because I Knew About That Too. And I Put People Into The Stories Because I Knew Them: The Ones With Pumpkins For Heads, And The Serial Killers With Eyes For Teeth, And The Little Chocolate People Filled With Raspberry Cream And The Rest Of Them.

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.

You Can't Run Away From Home Without Destroying Somebody's World.

Sister Mary Chose That Moment To Come In With The Tea. Satanist Or Not, She'd Also Found A Plate And Arranged Some Iced Biscuits On It.

The Squirrel Has Not Yet Found The Acorn That Will Grow To The Oak That Will Be Cut To Form The Cradle Of The Babe That Will Grow To Slay Me.

You Know, I'm Normally So Sanguine. But... Being Accused Of Rushing These Two Books Out To Cash In On The Newbery Medal, Without Access To Time Travel Equipment Or Anything, Just Makes Me Want To Bang My Forehead Gently Against A Tree For Half An Hour. Is It Too Much To Ask People To Think?

You Know What My Mum Once Said?’ Said Rosie… ‘she Said That If A Just-married Couple Put A Coin In A Jar Every Time They Make Love In Their First Year, And Take A Coin Out For Every Time That They Make Love In The Years That Follow, The Jar Will Never Be Emptied.’ And This Means…?’ Well’, She Said. ‘it’s Interesting, Isn’t It?

Stories Are The Things That Allow Us To Persuade Each Other That We're Human.

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

People Tend To Find Books When They Are Ready For Them.

I Remembered Something Somebody Had Once Said To Me. It's Okay. Everyday Is Freshly Ground.

Why Does She Want Me?" Coraline Asked The Cat. "why Does She Want Me To Stay Here With Her?" "she Wants Something To Love, I Think," Said The Cat. "something That Isn't Her. She Might Want Something To Eat As Well. It's Hard To Tell With Creatures Like That.

So, If A City Has A Personality, Maybe It Also Has A Soul. Maybe It Dreams.

Chicago Happened Slowly, Like A Migraine.

Bod Shrugged. "so?" He Said. "it's Only Death. I Mean, All Of My Best Friends Are Dead.

American Gods Was Designed To Be If Not Open-ended, At Least A Trilogy Kind Of Shape, So There's Definitely One More Book, Probably Another Couple Of Books There To Get Written.

She Had Forgotten Them All; Forgotten Richard Down In The Mud, And The Marquis And His Foolish Crossbow, And The World. She Was Delighted And Transported, In A Perfect Place, The World She Lived For. Her World Contained Two Things: Hunter, And The Beast. The Beast Knew That Too. It Was The Perfect Match, The Hunter And The Hunted. And Who Was Who, And Which Was Which, Only Time Would Reveal; Time And The Dance.

It’s A New Year And With It Comes A Fresh Opportunity To Shape Our World. So This Is My Wish, A Wish For Me As Much As It Is A Wish For You: In The World To Come, Let Us Be Brave – Let Us Walk Into The Dark Without Fear, And Step Into The Unknown With Smiles On Our Faces, Even If We’re Faking Them. And Whatever Happens To Us, Whatever We Make, Whatever We Learn, Let Us Take Joy In It. We Can Find Joy In The World If It’s Joy We’re Looking For, We Can Take Joy In The Act Of Creation. So That Is My Wish For You, And For Me. Bravery And Joy.

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

I Wondered How I Looked To Her, In That Place, And Knew That Even In A Place That Was Nothing But Knowledge That Was The One Thing I Could Not Know. That If I Look Inward I Would See Only Infinite Mirrors Staring Into Myself For Eternity.

He Would Go Somewhere No One Knew Him, And He Would Sit In A Library All Day And Read Books And Listen To People Breathing.

I Was Thinking One Of The Great Things About Fiction Is We, As A Race, Only Get To Look Out Of Our Own Eyes At The World. And Fiction Is A Fantastic Way Of Looking Out Through Somebody Else's Eyes.

Start Telling The Stories That Only You Can Tell.

I'd Love To Write Some Porn, But I Don't Know If I Have The Right Engines. When I Was A Young Man And I Was Tempted To Write Porn, Imaginary Parents Would Appear Over My Shoulder And Read What I Was Writing; Just About The Point That I Managed To Banish The Imaginary Parents, Real Children Would Lean Over My Shoulder And Read What I Was Writing.

The Trouble With Everything, These Days, For Me, Is Time. There Is Only One Me. There Are A Ridiculous Number Of Demands On My Time. There Are So Many Things I'm Trying To Do. It's So Much More About When I'm Going To Get Time To Do It, If I Get Time.

Librarians Are The Coolest People Out There Doing The Hardest Job Out There On The Frontlines. And Every Time I Get To Encounter Or Work With Librarians, I'm Always Impressed By Their Sheer Awesomeness.

A Life That Is, Like Any Other, Unlike Any Other.

If Not For Death, They’d Be Content To Simply Exist, But With Death, Well, Their Lives Will Have Meaning — A Boundary Beyond Which The Living Cannot Cross.

There Are Stories That Are True, In Which Each Individual's Tale Is Unique And Tragic, And The Worst Of The Tragedy Is That We Have Heard It Before, And We Cannot Allow Ourselves To Feel It To Deeply. We Build A Shell Around It Like An Oyster Dealing With A Painful Particle Of Grit, Coating It With Smooth Pearl Layers In Order To Cope. This Is How We Walk And Talk And Function, Day In, Day Out, Immune To Others' Pain And Loss. If It Were To Touch Us It Would Cripple Us Or Make Saints Of Us; But, For The Most Part, It Does Not Touch Us. We Cannot Allow It To.

There Are Accounts That, If We Open Our Hearts To Them, Will Cut Us Too Deeply.

Nothing’s Changed. You’ll Go Home. You’ll Be Bored. You’ll Be Ignored. No One Will Listen To You, Really Listen To You. You’re Too Clever And Too Quiet For Them To Understand. They Don’t Even Get Your Name Right.

I Think I Fell In Love With Her, A Little Bit. Isn't That Dumb? But It Was Like I Knew Her. Like She Was My Oldest, Dearest Friend. The Kind Of Person You Can Tell Anything To, No Matter How Bad, And They'll Still Love You, Because They Know You. I Wanted To Go With Her. I Wanted Her To Notice Me. And Then She Stopped Walking. Under The Moon, She Stopped. And Looked At Us. She Looked At Me. Maybe She Was Trying To Tell Me Something; I Don't Know. She Probably Didn't Even Know I Was There. But I'll Always Love Her. All My Life.

Short Stories Are Tiny Windows Into Other Worlds And Other Minds And Other Dreams

There Are Some Dogs Which, When You Meet Them, Remind You That, Despite Thousands Of Years Of Manmade Evolution, Every Dog Is Still Only Two Meals Away From Being A Wolf.

People Believe, Thought Shadow. It's What People Do. They Believe, And Then They Do Not Take Responsibility For Their Beliefs; They Conjure Things, And Do Not Trust The Conjuration. People Populate The Darkness; With Ghost, With Gods, With Electrons, With Tales. People Imagine, And People Believe; And It Is That Rock Solid Belief, That Makes Things Happen.

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

I Wish I Could Buy Time - Just Write A Cheque, And A Few Days Later A Brown Cardboard Box Would Arrive At The Door Containing Three Months (along With An Extra Bonus Sunny Weekend For Being A Good Customer).

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.

Make Glorious And Fantastic Mistakes.

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 Didn't Like People Rewriting My Dialogue. I Didn't Like The Fact That We'd Start A Comic With The Joker, And By The Time We Inked It, He Would Have Turned Into The Scarecrow.

How Old Are You?" Asked Door. Richard Was Pleased She Had Asked; He Would Never Have Dared. "as Old As My Tongue," Said Hunter, Primly, "and A Little Older Than My Teeth.

Fairy Tales Are More Than True: Not Because They Tell Us That Dragons Exist, But Because They Tell Us That Dragons Can Be Beaten.

Mostly You Are What They Think You Are.

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.

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.

It's Astonishing How Much Trouble One Can Get Oneself Into, If One Works At It. And Astonishing How Much Trouble One Can Get Oneself Out Of, If One Assumes That Everything Will, Somehow Or Other, Work Out For The Best.

When I Started Out, There Were A Lot Of Things I Knew I Couldn't Do, And A Lot Of Things I Only Found Out I Couldn't Do By Going And Doing It. And No-one Was Watching, And Nobody Cared.

You Can Tell The Date Of An Old Science Fiction Novel By Every Word On The Page. Nothing Dates Harder And Faster And More Strangely Than The Future.

My Bed Was Pushed Up Hard Against The Wall Just Below The Window. I Loved To Sleep With The Windows Open. Rainy Nights Were The Best Of All: I Would Open My Windows And Put My Head On My Pillow And Close My Eyes And Feel The Wind On My Face And Listen To The Trees Sway And Creak. There Would Be Raindrops Blown Onto My Face, Too, If I Was Lucky, And I Would Imagine That I Was In My Boat On The Ocean And That It Was Swaying With The Swell Of The Sea. I Did Not Imagine That I Was A Pirate, Or That I Was Going Anywhere. I Was Just On My Boat.

It's Still National Library Week. You Should Be Especially Nice To A Librarian Today, Or Tomorrow. Sometime This Week, Anyway. Probably The Librarians Would Like Tea. Or Chocolates. Or A Reliable Source Of Funding.

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.

Loyalty Was A Great Thing, But No Lieutenants Should Be Forced To Choose Between Their Leader And A Circus With Elephants.

Why Are We Talking About This Good And Evil? They're Just Names For Sides. We Know That.

Perfection Is Like Chasing The Horizon. Keep Moving.

The Converse Held Reassuringly True: Daylight Was Safe. Daylight Was Always Safe.

It Goes Without Saying That All Of The People, Living, Dead, And Otherwise, In This Story Are Fictional Or Used In A Fictional Context. Only The Gods Are Real.

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.

Many Phenomena - Wars, Plagues, Sudden Audits - Have Been Advanced As Evidence For The Hidden Hand Of Satan In The Affairs Of Man, But Whenever Students Of Demonology Get Together The M25 London Orbital Motorway Is Generally Agreed To Be Among The Top Contenders For Exhibit A.

This Little Piggy Went To Hades This Little Piggy Stayed Home This Little Piggy Ate Raw And Steaming Human Flesh This Little Piggy Violated Virgins And This Little Piggy Clambered Over A Heap Of Dead Bodies To Get To The Top

Peas Baffled Me. I Could Not Understand Why Grown-ups Would Take Things That Tasted So Good Raw, And Then Put Them In Tins, And Make Them Revolting.

I Love Making Things. I Love Building Things. I Love The Idea That Something's In The World That Wasn't There Before.

Building Things

Yes. We Both Have A Bad Feeling. Tonight We Shall Take Our Bad Feelings And Share Them, And Face Them. We Shall Mourn. We Shall Drain The Bitter Dregs Of Mortality. Pain Shared, My Brother, Is Pain Not Doubled, But Halved. No Man Is An Island.

Face Your Life, Its Pain, Its Pleasure, Leave No Path Untaken.

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.

She Had The Feeling That The Door Was Looking At Her, Which She Knew Was Silly, And Knew On A Deeper Level Was Somehow True.

Nobody Gets Through Life Without Losing A Few Things On The Way.

She Was Beautiful, But She Was Beautiful In The Way A Forest Fire Was Beautiful.

Take One, And You Cannot Take The Other. But Neither Path Is Safe. Which Way Would You Walk — The Way Of Hard Truths Or The Way Of Fine Lies?

Whenever It Rains You Will Think Of Her.

Suggestions? Put It Aside For A Few Days, Or Longer, Do Other Things, Try Not To Think About It. Then Sit Down And Read It (printouts Are Best I Find, But That's Just Me) As If You've Never Seen It Before. Start At The Beginning. Scribble On The Manuscript As You Go If You See Anything You Want To Change. And Often, When You Get To The End You'll Be Both Enthusiastic About It And Know What The Next Few Words Are. And You Do It All One Word At A Time.

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.

People Are Icebergs. So Much Of Us Is Underneath.

Fear Is Contagious. You Can Catch It.

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.

Style Is Made Up Of Whatever An Author Can't Avoid Doing.

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?

When I Was A Kid And A Young Man I Read Everything. When I Was About 23, I Was Incredibly Lucky In That I Wound Up With Several Book Review Columns, Which Meant That I Had To Read Huge Amounts Of Stuff That Was Outside My Experience And Outside My Comfort Zone. I Think Every Young Writer Should Be Forced To Read The Kind Of Stuff They Would Not Normally Read For Pleasure.

Have You Ever Spent Days And Days And Days Making Up Flavors Of Ice Cream That No One's Ever Eaten Before? Like Chicken And Telepone Ice Cream? Green Mouse Ice Cream Was The Worst. I Didn't Like That At All.

Human Beings Do Not Like Being Pushed About By Gods. They May Seem To, On The Surface, But Somewhere On The Inside, Underneath It All, They Sense It, And They Resent It.

The Cat Dropped The Rat Between Its Two Front Paws. "there Are Those," It Said With A Sigh, In Tones As Smooth As Oiled Silk, "who Have Suggested That The Tendency Of A Cat To Play With Its Prey Is A Merciful One - After All, It Permits The Occasional Funny Little Running Snack To Escape, From Time To Time. How Often Does Your Dinner Get To Escape?

Leave No Path Untaken.

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?

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.

Jesus. Low-key Lyesmith," Said Shadow. And Then He Heard What He Was Saying And He Understood. "loki," He Said. "loki Lie-smith." "you're Slow," Said Loki, "but You Get There In The End." And His Lips Twisted Into A Scarred Smile And The Embers Danced In The Shadows Of His Eyes.

There Was Virginia Boote, The Food And Restaurant Critic, Who Had Once Been A Great Beauty But Was Now A Grand And Magnificent Ruin, And Who Delighted In Her Ruination.

We Were Never Lovers, And We Never Will Be, Now. I Do Not Regret That, However. I Regret The Conversations We Never Had, The Time We Did Not Spend Together. I Regret That I Never Told Him That He Made Me Happy, When I Was In His Company. The World Was The Better For His Being In It. These Things Alone Do I Now Regret: Things Left Unsaid. And He Is Gone, And I Am Old.

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.

I Want To Write A Play. I'd Like To Do An Original Musical. I Should Probably Put Together A Poetry Collection.

And Then He'd Tried To Become An Official Atheist And Hadn't Got The Rock-hard Self-satisfied Strength Of Belief Even For That.

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