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I Liked Myths. They Weren't Adult Stories And They Weren't Children Stories. They Were Better Than That. They Just Were. Adult Stories Never Made Sense, And They Were Slow To Start. They Made Me Feel Like There Were Secrets, Masonic, Mythic Secrets, To Adulthood. Why Didn't Adults Want To Read About Narnia, About Secret Islands And Smugglers And Dangerous Fairies?

-Neil Gaiman

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I Liked Myths. They

Neil Gaiman

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I Liked Myths. They Weren't Adult Stories And They Weren't Children Stories. They Were Better Than That. They Just Were. Adult Stories Never Made Sense, And They Were Slow To Start. They Made Me Feel Like There Were Secrets, Masonic, Mythic Secrets, To Adulthood. Why Didn't Adults Want To Read About Narnia, About Secret Islands And Smugglers And Dangerous Fairies?

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Don't Start Anything You're Not Prepared To Finish.

Fiction Is The Lie That Tells The Truth, After All.

Telling The Truth

[d]on't Ever Apologize To An Author For Buying Something In Paperback, Or Taking It Out From A Library (that's What They're There For. Use Your Library). Don't Apologize To This Author For Buying Books Second Hand, Or Getting Them From Bookcrossing Or Borrowing A Friend's Copy. What's Important To Me Is That People Read The Books And Enjoy Them, And That, At Some Point In There, The Book Was Bought By Someone. And That People Who Like Things, Tell Other People. The Most Important Thing Is That People Read.

If You Only Write When Inspired, You May Be A Fairly Decent Poet, But You'll Never Be A Novelist.

We Do Not Always Remember The Things That Do No Credit To Us. We Justify Them, Cover Them In Bright Lies Or With The Thick Dust Of Forgetfulness.

I Sat In The Dark And Thought: There’s No Big Apocalypse. Just An Endless Procession Of Little Ones.

If You Were Close Enough To Her Ruby-red Lips You Would Hear Her Say, 'i Will Rise Now And Go About The City In The Streets, And In The Broad Ways I Will Seek The One I Love.' She Is Whispering That, And She Whispers, 'by Night On My Bed I Sought Him Whom My Soul Loveth. Let Him Kiss Me With The Kisses Of His Mouth. My Beloved Is Mine And I Am His.

Fiction Can Show You A Different World. It Can Take You Somewhere You’ve Never Been. Once You’ve Visited Other Worlds, Like Those Who Ate Fairy Fruit, You Can Never Be Entirely Content With The World That You Grew Up In. Discontent Is A Good Thing: Discontented People Can Modify And Improve Their Worlds, Leave Them Better, Leave Them Different.

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.

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.

Does It Make You Feel Big To Make A Little Boy Cry?

Death And Famine And War And Pollution Continued Biking Towards Tadfield. And Grievous Bodily Harm, Cruelty To Animals, Things Not Working Properly Even After You've Given Them A Good Thumping But Secretly No Alcohol Lager, And Really Cool People Travelled With Them.

I Tweet, Therefore My Entire Life Has Shrunk To 140 Character Chunks Of Instant Event And Predigested Gnomic Wisdom. And Swearing.

Sometimes I Wish That Just Solving The Plot Problems Was Enough. And Then Elves Would Go And Do All The Actual Work Moving The Words Around.

Rule One Of Reading Other People's Stories Is That Whenever You Say 'well That's Not Convincing' The Author Tells You That's The Bit That Wasn't Made Up. This Is Because Real Life Is Under No Obligation To Be Convincing.

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.

Never Trust A Demon. He Has A Hundred Motives For Anything He Does... Ninety-nine Of Them, At Least, Are Malevolent.

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."

What I Say Is, A Town Isn't A Town Without A Bookstore. It May Call Itself A Town, But Unless It's Got A Bookstore It Knows It's Not Fooling A Soul.

You Wouldn't Die In Here, Nothing Ever Dies In Here, But If You Stayed Here For Too Long, After A While Just A Little Of You Would Exist Everywhere, All Spread Out. And That's Not A Good Thing. Never Enough Of You All Together In One Place, So T Here Wouldn't Be Anything Left That Would Think Of Itself As An 'i.' No Point Of View Any Longer, Because You'd Be An Infinite Sequence Of Views And Of Points.

Whereas There Are Lots Of Good Novels Out There; There Are A Few Good Movies Out There. People Have Been Writing Great Poems For Years, But There Aren't A Lot Of Good Comics. I Like Trying To Write Them.

He Stared Up At The Stars, And It Seemed To Him Then That They Were Dancers, Stately And Graceful, Performing A Dance Almost Infinite In Its Complexity. He Imagined He Could See The Very Faces Of The Stars; Pale, They Were, And Smiling Gently, As If They Had Spent So Much Time Above The World, Watching The Scrambling And The Joy And The Pain Of The People Below Them, That They Could Not Help Being Amused Every Time Another Little Human Believed Itself The Center Of Its World, As Each Of Us Does.

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.

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

"where Do You Get Your Ideas?" That's The One Question I'm Genuinely Sick Of Being Asked, And Also Genuinely Fascinated By. What Fascinates Me Is Not That People Ask The Question, But What Kind Of Answer Are They Really Looking For? Because If I Tell Them The Truth, Which Is "i Make Them Up," They Seem Very Disappointed. They Want To Know About The Trek I Do Once A Year To The Mountain.

The Marquis Sighed. "i Thought It Was Just A Legend," He Said. "like The Alligators In The Sewers Of New York City." Old Bailey Nodded, Sagely: "what, The Big White Buggers? They're Down There. I Had A Friend Lost A Head To One Of Them." A Moment Of Silence. Old Naeiley Handed The Statue Back To The Marquis. Then He Raised His Hand, And Snapped It, Like A Crocodile Hand, At The Carabas. "it Was Ok," Gurned Old Bailey With A Grin That Was Most Terrible To Behold. "he Had Another.

They Kissed For The First Time Then In The Cold Spring Rain, Though Neither One Of Them Now Knew That It Was Raining. Tristran's Heart Pounded In His Chest As If It Was Not Big Enough To Contain All The Joy That It Held. He Opened His Eyes As He Kissed The Star. Her Sky-blue Eyes Stared Back Into His, And In Her Eyes He Could See No Parting From Her.

I Don't Think About Age Groups When I Write, Although I Think If I Know I'm Writing For Children I'll Be A Bit More Ambitious, And Think More About Every Word, Because I Know That They Pay Closer Attention When They Read Than Adults Do.

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

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

I Loved The Sound Of The Words, Even If I Was Not Entirely Sure What All Of Them Meant.

I'm Just Going To Stay Here, In The Darkness Under The Arch. I Can Hear You All Out There, Trip-trapping, Trip-trapping Over My Bridge. Oh Yes, I Can Hear You. But I'm Not Coming Out.

I Don't Know Why People Would Want To Have Lunch With Writers. I've Eaten With Writers. We Have Appalling Table Manners, And Rarely Say Anything Other Than 'pass The Salt' Or 'if You're Not Going To Eat That, Can I Have It?'

I Liked Myths. They Weren't Adult Stories And They Weren't Children's Stories. They Were Better Than That. They Just Were.

Some Hats Can Only Be Worn If You're Willing To Be Jaunty, To Set Them At An Angle And To Walk Beneath Them With A Spring In Your Stride As If You're Only A Step Away From Dancing. They Demand A Lot Of You.

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

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

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.

He Felt Her Heart Beating Against His Chest. The Moment Began To Transmute, And He Wondered If There Was Something He Should Do. He Wondered If He Should Kiss Her. He Wondered If He Wanted To Kiss Her, And He Realized That He Truly Didn't Know.

Pain Shared, My Brother, Is Pain Not Doubled But Halved. No Man Is An Island

The Main Rule Of Writing Is That If You Do It With Enough Assurance And Confidence, You’re Allowed To Do Whatever You Like. (that May Be A Rule For Life As Well As For Writing. But It’s Definitely True For Writing.) So Write Your Story As It Needs To Be Written. Write It Honestly, And Tell It As Best You Can. I’m Not Sure That There Are Any Other Rules. Not Ones That Matter.

It Sounded Like A Piece Of Blackboard Being Dragged Over The Nails Of A Wall Of Severed Fingers.

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.

We Owe It To Each Other To Tell Stories.

Nobody Died. How Can You Kill An Idea? How Can You Kill The Personification Of An Action?" "then What Died? Who Are You Mourning?" "a Point Of View.

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

I Took Delight In Hurling Books Across The Room If I Knew I Would Not Be Reading The Second Chapter. Then I’d Go And Pick Them Up Again, Because They Are Books, After All, And We Are Not Savages.

I Would Read. I Would Explore

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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.

But There Was A Kitten On My Pillow, And It Was Purring In My Face And Vibrating Gently With Every Purr, And, Very Soon, I Slept.

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.

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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.

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

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Her Other Mother Smiled Brightly And The Hair On Her Head Drifted Like Plants Under The Sea.

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

I Loved Writing A Book In Which, In Some Ways, It's Very, Very Classical, And In Some Ways I'm Breaking Lots Of Rules About What You Can Do And What You Can't Do.

Everything That Is,casts A Shadow

It's A Given That We Exist In A World Where We Have To Live In Continuity Every Day; No One Is Immune To That, In Life Or Romance Novels. By The Same Token, It's Not Something I Find Terribly Important.

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.

An Angel Who Did Not So Much Fall As Saunter Vaguely Downwards.

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

People Seem To Think That They Can't Come Up With Ideas, And They're Wrong. They Can And They Do, But They Just Think Of It As Daydreaming, Or Wasting Time. Kids Get Told Not To Make Things Up, And In My Case, Nobody Told Me Long Enough, Or It Just Didn't Stick.

I Imagine The World Dividing Into The People Who Want To Feed Their Children, And The Ones Shooting At Them.

Stories Are Webs, Interconnected Strand To Strand, And You Follow Each Story To The Center, Because The Center Is The End. Each Person Is A Strand Of The Story.

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 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.

When You Start Out On A Career In The Arts You Have No Idea What You Are Doing. This Is Great. People Who Know What They Are Doing Know The Rules, And Know What Is Possible And Impossible. You Do Not. And You Should Not. The Rules On What Is Possible And Impossible In The Arts Were Made By People Who Had Not Tested The Bounds Of The Possible By Going Beyond Them. And You Can. If You Don't Know It's Impossible It's Easier To Do. And Because Nobody's Done It Before, They Haven't Made Up Rules To Stop Anyone Doing That Again, Yet.

Possible And Impossible

I Don't Think I'm Mainstream. I Think What I Am Is Lots And Lots Of Different Cults. And When You Get Lots And Lots Of Small Groups Who Like You A Lot, They Add Up To A Big Group Without Ever Actually Becoming Mainstream.

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

Adventures Are All Very Well In Their Place, But There's A Lot To Be Said For Regular Meals And Freedom From Pain.

Stories Are In One Way Or Another Mirrors. We Use Them To Explain To Ourselves How The World Works Or How It Doesn’t Work. Like Mirrors Stories Prepare Us For The Day To Come. They Distract Us From The Things In Darkness.

In Order For Stories To Work - For Kids And For Adults - They Should Scare. And You Should Triumph. There's No Point In Triumphing Over Evil If The Evil Isn't Scary.

What A Refreshing Mind You Have, Young Man. There Really Is Nothing Quite Like Total Ignorance, Is There?

There Was Something About Being In The Vicinity Of Grahame Coats That Always Made Fat Charlie (a) Speak In Cliches And (b) Begin To Daydream About Huge Black Helicopters First Opening Fire Upon, Then Dropping Buckets Of Flaming Napalm Onto The Offices Of The Grahame Coats Agency. Fat Charlie Would Not Be In The Office In Those Daydreams. He Would Be Sitting In A Chair Outside A Little Cafe On The Other Side Of Aldwych, Sipping A Frothy Coffee And Occasionally Cheering At An Exceptionally Well-flung Bucket Of Napalm.

Nobody Will Ever Hurt Her. She’ll Just Smile Her Faint Vague Wonderful Smile And Walk Away.

You Are An Analog Girl, Living In A Digital World.

Know That Diamonds And Roses Are As Uncomfortable When They Tumble From One's Lips As Toads And Frogs: Colder, Too, And Sharper, And They Cut.

When You're Starting Off As A Young Writer, You Look At All The Stuff That's Gone Before And The Stuff That's Influenced You, And You Reach The Ladle Of Your Imagination Into This Bubbling Stew Pot Of All Of This Stuff, And You Pour It Out. And That's Where You Start From.

This Was The Void. Not Blackness, Not Nothingness. This Was What Lay Beneath The Thinly Painted Scrim Of Reality.

The Young Woman Was Crying, In The Way That Grownups Cry, Keeping It Inside As Much As They Can, And Hating It When It Still Pushes Out At The Edges, Making Them Ugly And Funny-looking On The Way.

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.

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.

You Musn’t Be Afraid Of The Dark.’ ‘i’m Not,’ Said Shadow. ‘i’m Afraid Of The People In The Dark.

Short Stories Are Tiny Windows Into Other Worlds And Other Minds And Dreams. They Are Journeys You Can Make To The Far Side Of The Universe And Still Be Back In Time For Dinner.

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.

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.

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 Ducks In St James's Park Are So Used To Being Fed Bread By Secret Agents Meeting Clandestinely That They Have Developed Their Own Pavlovian Reaction. Put A St James's Park Duck In A Laboratory Cage And Show It A Picture Of Two Men -- One Usually Wearing A Coat With A Fur Collar, The Other Something Sombre With A Scarf -- And It'll Look Up Expectantly.

You Know That I Love You." And Despite Herself, Coraline Nodded. It Was True. The Other Mother Loved Her. But She Loved Coraline As A Miser Loves Money, Or A Dragon Loves Its Gold. In The Other Mother's Button Eyes, Coraline Knew That She Was A Possession, Nothing More. A Tolerated Pet, Whose Behavior Was No Longer Amusing.

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.

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.

Is The Chemical Aftertaste The Reason Why People Eat Hot Dogs, Or Is It Some Kind Of Bonus?

Picking Five Favorite Books Is Like Picking The Five Body Parts You'd Most Like Not To Lose.

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.

I Loved The Fact That I Was Suddenly No Longer Dependent On Whether A Store Took Out An Ad In The Right Place, Or On The Word On The Street.

You Made Peace,” Said The Buffalo Man. “you Took Our Words And Made Them Your Own. They Never Understood That They Were Here—and The People Who Worshiped Them Were Here—because It Suits Us That They Are Here. But We Can Change Our Minds. And Perhaps We Will.

M Is For Magic. All The Letters Are, If You Put Them Together Properly. You Can Make Magic With Them, And Dreams, And, I Hope, Even A Few Surprises.

What’s Your Name, Lad?” “newton. Newton Pulsifer.” “lucifer? What’s That You Say? Are Ye Of The Spawn Of Darkness, A Tempting Beguiling Creature From The Pit, Wanton Limbs Steaming From The Fleshpots Of Hades, In Tortured And Lubricious Thrall To Your Stygian And Hellish Masters?” “that’s Pulsifer,” Explained Newton. “with A P. I Don’t Know About The Other Stuff, But We Come From Surrey.” The Voice On The Phone Sounded Vaguely Disappointed.

I Do Not Permit Affection Or Lack Thereof To Influence My Actions. There Is Good, And There Is Evil. The Good Must Be Protected, The Evil Eradicated. I Have Shown You The Triumph Of Evil As A Caution.

Set Your Fantasies In The Here And Now And Then, If Challenged, Claim To Be Writing Magical Realism.

People Kill What They Fear. They Burned, And Drowned, And Hanged Those They Saw As Witches, The Devil's Servants: The Wise Women And The Cunning Men, The Unfortunate, The Lost And The Strange

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.

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 Like You Said The Other Day," Said Adam. "you Grow Up Readin' About Pirates And Cowboys And Spacemen And Stuff, And Jus' When You Think The World's Full Of Amazin' Things, They Tell You It's Really All Dead Whales And Chopped-down Forests And Nucular Waste Hangin' About For Millions Of Years. 'snot Worth Growin' Up For, If You Ask My Opinion.

This Is The Only Country In The World, That Worries About What It Is. The Rest Of Them Know What They Are. No One Ever Needs To Go Searching For The Heart Of Norway. Or Looks For The Soul Of Mozambique. They Know What They Are.

I Have Never Written A Musical. I Have Never Written A Weird, Interactive Piece Of Theater. I Wanted To Do Something That Would Be Disturbing. It Will Be Disturbing Theater With Songs. There Will Be No People On Wires. That's Probably The Next One Of Those Things On My Bucket List Of Things That I Need To Write Before I Get Hit By That Car.

A Book Is A Dream That You Hold In Your Hands.

Writing's A Lot Like Cooking. Sometimes The Cake Won't Rise, No Matter What You Do, And Every Now And Again The Cake Tastes Better Than You Ever Could Have Dreamed It Would.

After A While It Sort Of Began To Rain, Which Is To Say That It Was The Kind Of Rain That Never Comes To A Decision About Whether It's Actually Raining Or Not. Driving In It, You Would Never Have Been Certain Whether Or Not To Turn On Your Wipers.

In Ten Years Time I’ll Be… (dead) Sixty.

I Have Heard The Languages Of Apocalypse, And Now I Shall Embrace The Silence.

I Am Fascinated A) By Transgressive Art And B) What Happens Beyond The Boundaries.

Being A Writer Is A Very Peculiar Sort Of A Job: It's Always You Versus A Blank Sheet Of Paper (or A Blank Screen) And Quite Often The Blank Piece Of Paper Wins.

You Know What Killed Off The Dinosaurs, Whateley? We Did. In One Barbecue.

Richard Wrote A Mental Diary In His Head. Dear Diary, He Began. On Friday I Had A Job, A Fiance, A Home, And A Life That Made Sense. (well, As Much As An Life Makes Sense). Then I Found An Injured Girl Bleeding On The Pavement And I Tried To Be Good Samaritan. Now I've Got No Fiance, No Home, No Job, And I'm Walking Around A Couple Of Hundred Feet Under The Streets Of London With The Projected Life Expectancy Of A Suicidal Fruit Fly.

And I Would Try And Walk Far Enough Away That People Would Not Assume I Was With Him.

All Writers Have This Vague Hope That The Elves Will Come In The Night And Finish Any Stories.

You're Brave. You Are The Bravest Person I Know, And You Are My Friend. I Don't Care If You Are Imaginary.

It's Harder To Pick And Choose When You're Dead. It's Like A Photograph, You Know. It Doesn't Matter As Much.

I Was Not Scared Of Anything, When I Read My Book.

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.

The Magic And The Danger Of Fiction Is This: It Allows Us To See Through Other Eyes. It Takes Us To Places We Have Never Been, Allows Us To Care About, Worry About, Laugh With, And Cry For People Who Do Not, Outside Of The Story, Exist. There Are People Who Think That Things That Happen In Fiction Do Not Really Happen. These People Are Wrong.

There's A Tale In The Caballa That Suggests That The Angel Of Death Is So Beautiful That Upon Seeing It (or Him, Or Her) You Fall In Love So Hard, So Fast, That Your Soul Is Pulled Out Through Your Eyes. I Like That Story.

Falling In Love

Everybody Has A Secret World Inside Of Them. I Mean Everybody. All Of The People In The Whole World, I Mean Everybody — No Matter How Dull And Boring They Are On The Outside. Inside Them They've All Got Unimaginable, Magnificent, Wonderful, Stupid, Amazing Worlds... Not Just One World. Hundreds Of Them. Thousands, Maybe.

I'm Probably Slightly More Famous Than I've Been Comfortable With. Famous Enough To Have My Phone Calls Returned Is About As Famous As I Want To Be.

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.

I Liked Myths. They Weren't Adult Stories And They Weren't Children Stories. They Were Better Than That. They Just Were. Adult Stories Never Made Sense, And They Were Slow To Start. They Made Me Feel Like There Were Secrets, Masonic, Mythic Secrets, To Adulthood. Why Didn't Adults Want To Read About Narnia, About Secret Islands And Smugglers And Dangerous Fairies?

Most People Don't Realize How Important Librarians Are. I Ran Across A Book Recently Which Suggested That The Peace And Prosperity Of A Culture Was Solely Related To How Many Librarians It Contained. Possibly A Slight Overstatement. But A Culture That Doesn't Value Its Librarians Doesn't Value Ideas And Without Ideas, Well, Where Are We?

Yes. Growing Up Is Highly Overrated. Just Be An Author.

What Are These Fundamental Principles, If They Are Not Atoms?" "stories. And They Give Me Hope.

Like The Newspapers Used To Say, If The Truth Isn't Big Enough, You Print The Legend.

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

Nothing I Did Where The Only Reason For Doing It Was The Money Was Ever Worth It, Except As Bitter Experience.

Bitter Experience

I Love Religion. I Could Make Up Religions All Day. I Sort Of Think That In An Ideal World I'd Like To Be A Religion Designer. I'd Like People Come Up To Me And Say, I Need A Religion. I'd Go Talk To Them For A While, And I'd Design A Religion For Them. That Would Be A Great Job. There's A Need For People Like That. Fortunately, Seeing That One Can't Actually Do It, I Get Paid For Sort Of Making Them Up Anyway.

There Was A Hand In The Darkness, And It Held A Knife.

It's Not Sipping Wine. It's A Mourning Wine. You Drain It. Like This.

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.

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.

Any View Of Things That Is Not Strange, Is False.

I Think I've Got Fear Down, But How Do I Take It All The Way Up To Terror?

He Tried To Listen To The Conversations Going On At The Table And He Found That He Could No Longer Concentrate On What Anyone Was Saying And Which Was Worse That He Was Not Interested In Any Of What He Was Able To Hear.

I Had To Persuade A Dog To Swallow A Pill. I Twittered For Advice And I Got Suggestion After Suggestion. Most Of Them Didn't Work. 'put The Pill In The Sausage.' No - That Doesn't Work. 'cheese.' No. Then Someone Said: 'you Wrap It In Butter And It Will Slide Down.' I Tried It And It Worked! And I'd Learnt How To Give A Pill To A Dog Through The Magic Of Twitter.

The Future Came And Went In The Mildly Discouraging Way That Futures Do.

If A Devil Is One Who Dares, When Others Hold Back, Then I Am Happy To Play The Devil In This Mystery, Boy.

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

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.

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.

We Live In A World In Which The Only Utopian Visions Arrive In Commercial Breaks: Magical Visions Of An Impossibly Hospitable World, Peopled By Bright-eyed Attractive Men, Women, Children... Where Nobody Dies... In My Worlds People Died. And I Thought That Was Honest. I Thought I Was Being Honest.

For Me, The Glory Of My First 25 Years As A Writer Was I Could Put Things Off As Long As I Wanted.

There Are Stories You Build And There Are Stories You Construct; Then There Are The Stories That You Hack Out Of Rock Removing All The Things That Are Not The Story.

There Were People You Could Hug, And Then There Was Silas.

This Is A Work Of Fiction. Still, Given An Infinite Number Of Possible Worlds, It Must Be True On One Of Them. And If A Story Set In An Infinite Number Of Possible Worlds Is True In One Of Them, Then It Must Be True In All Of Them. So Maybe, It's Not As Fictional As We Think.

I Think The Short Story Is A Very Underrated Art Form. We Know That Novels Deserve Respect.

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.

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.

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

Firstly, There No Such Person As Death. Second, Death's This Tall Guy With A Bone Face, Like A Skeletal Monk, With A Scythe And An Hourglass And A Big White Horse And A Penchant For Playing Chess With Scandinavians. Third, He Doesn't Exist Either.

Death Is The Second Oldest Of The Endless. It's Hard Not To Love Her. She Loves You, After All.

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

To Be A Good Writer... Read A Lot And Write Every Day.

That Which Is Dreamed Can Never Be Lost, Can Never Be Undreamed.

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.

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

Well-meaning Adults Can Easily Destroy A Child’s Love Of Reading: Stop Them Reading What They Enjoy, Or Give Them Worthy-but-dull Books That You Like, The 21st-century Equivalents Of Victorian “improving” Literature. You’ll Wind Up With A Generation Convinced That Reading Is Uncool And Worse, Unpleasant.

In Hollywood, Lying Is Something That People Do Like Breathing.

Start Telling The Stories That Only You Can Tell, Because There'll Always Be Better Writers Than You And There'll Always Be Smarter Writers Than You. There Will Always Be People Who Are Much Better At Doing This Or Doing That - But You Are The Only You.

That Doesn't Happen," She Explained. "stars Fall. They Don't Go Back Up Again." "you Could Be The First," He Told Her.

I Believe That Anyone Who Claims To Know What's Going On Will Lie About The Little Things Too.

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

Following Instructions

I Lived In Books More Than I Lived Anywhere Else.

I Would Not Describe Myself As A Political Writer Except In The Sense That The Personal Is Political, Which Is Something That I Do Strongly Believe. And In That Sense American Gods Is A Very Personal Novel And A Political Novel. I Was Trying To Describe The Experience Of Coming To America As An Immigrant, The Experience Of Watching The Way That America Tends To Eat Other Cultures.

You're No Help," He Told The Lime. This Was Unfair. It Was Only A Lime; There Was Nothing Special About It At All. It Was Doing The Best It Could.

I Think There Should Be An Occupy Gallifrey. Because 0.000001% Of The People Have 99.99999% Of The Time.

There Are A Lot Of Artists Who've Said They'd Like To Work With Me. To Be Honest, I'm Not Sure There Is Such A Thing As An Inappropriate Artist. The Trick Is Matching The Artist With A Story.

And Life Is A Good Thing For A Writer. It's Where We Get Our Raw Material, For A Start. We Quite Like To Stop And Watch It.

October Knew, Of Course, That The Action Of Turning A Page, Of Ending A Chapter Or Of Shutting A Book, Did Not End A Tale. Having Admitted That, He Would Also Avow That Happy Endings Were Never Difficult To Find: "it Is Simply A Matter," He Explained To April, "of Finding A Sunny Place In A Garden, Where The Light Is Golden And The Grass Is Soft; Somewhere To Rest, To Stop Reading, And To Be Content.

We Have An Obligation To Imagine. It Is Easy To Pretend That Nobody Can Change Anything, That We Are In A World In Which Society Is Huge And The Individual Is Less Than Nothing: An Atom In A Wall, A Grain Of Rice In A Rice Field. But The Truth Is, Individuals Change Their World Over And Over, Individuals Make The Future, And They Do It By Imagining That Things Can Be Different.

And Did I Pass?" The Face Of The Old Woman On My Right Was Unreadable In The Gathering Dusk. On My Left The Younger Woman Said, "you Don't Pass Or Fail At Being A Person, Dear.

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

I Don't Know. I Had To Be Something, Didn't I?

I Hope That This Year, You Make Mistakes. If You Do, Then It Means You Have Tried, Learned, Lived, Pushed Yourself, Changed You And Your World, And Most Importantly, You've Done Something.

If You Give A Writer A Pile Of Blank Paper And Say You Can Write Anything You Like On Any Subject You Want At Any Length You Want, You Will Probably Never Get Anything At All, Whereas If You Have 900 Words To Write, And It's Fiction That Is Somehow Op-ed Fiction, And It Needs To Tie In With Halloween . . . Okay, Those Are My Constraints, That's Where I Now Need To Start Building Something.

You Can Buy A Book New, Buy It In Hardback Or Wait For The Paperback, Find It Used Or As A Collectible. I Don't Mind. What I Care About Most Is That People Are Reading.

He Wondered How It Could Have Taken Him So Long To Realize He Cared For Her, And He Told Her So, And She Called Him An Idiot, And He Declared That It Was The Finest Thing That Ever A Man Had Been Called.

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.

Hearts May Break, But Hearts Are The Toughest Of Muscles, Able To Pump For A Lifetime, Seventy Times A Minute, And Scarcely Falter Along The Way. Even Dreams, The Most Delicate And Intangible Of Things, Can Prove Remarkably Difficult To Kill.

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

Nothing's Ever The Same," She Said. "be It A Second Later Or A Hundred Years. It's Always Churning And Roiling. And People Change As Much As Oceans.

Write Your Story As It Needs To Be Written. Write It Honestly, And Tell It As Best You Can. I'm Not Sure That There Are Any Other Rules. Not Ones That Matter.

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.

It Felt Like A Small Forever.

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.

This Is Not A Place, After All. It Is Between Places. This Is Nowhere. A Brief Thought: I Could Stay Here, Abandon My Quest, Hang Forever In The Void, Safe And Cold And Alone.

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