Background Image

...

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.

-Neil Gaiman

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

I Suppose I Could

Neil Gaiman

...

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.

Views: 7

Topic

More From Neil Gaiman

She Sat Down On One Of Her Grandmother's Uncomfortable Armchairs, And The Cat Sprang Up Into Her Lap And Made Itself Comfortable. The Light That Came Through The Picture Window Was Daylight, Real Golden Late-afternoon Daylight, Not A White Mist Light. The Sky Was A Robin's-egg Blue, And Coraline Could See Trees And, Beyond The Trees, Green Hills, Which Faded On The Horizon Into Purples And Grays. The Sky Had Never Seemed So Sky, The World Had Never Seemed So World ... Nothing, She Thought, Had Ever Been So Interesting.

Freedom Of Speech Gives You The Right To Stay Silent.

Freedom Of Speech

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

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.

No, Look, There's A Blue Box. It's Bigger On The Inside Than It Is On The Outside. It Can Go Anywhere In Time And Space And Sometimes Even Where It's Meant To Go. And When It Turns Up, There's A Bloke In It Called The Doctor And There Will Be Stuff Wrong And He Will Do His Best To Sort It Out And He Will Probably Succeed Cos He's Awesome. Now Sit Down, Shut Up, And Watch 'blink'.

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.

A Piratical Ghost Story In Thirteen Ingenious But Potentially Disturbing Rhyming Couplets, Originally Conceived As A Confection Both To Amuse And To Entertain By Mr. Neil Gaiman, Scrivener, And Then Doodled, Elaborated Upon, Illustrated, And Beaten Soundly By Mr. Cris Grimly, Etcher And Illuminator, Featuring Two Brave Children, Their Diminutive But No Less Courageous Gazelle, And A Large Number Of Extremely Dangerous Trolls, Monsters, Bugbears, Creatures, And Other Such Nastiness, Many Of Which Have Perfectly Disgusting Eating Habits And Ought Not, Under Any Circumstances, To Be Encouraged.

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

Books Smell And Feel Better. They Have That Wonderful Thingness Of Turning The Pages.

Have You Ever Had One Of Those Days When Something Just Seems To Be Trying To Tell You Somebody?

One Of Those Days

I Don't Know If Proud Is The Right Word, But I Am Somebody Who Does Not, On The Whole, Have The Highest Regard For My Own Stuff In That When I Look All I Get To See Are The Flaws.

And There Never Was An Apple, In Adam's Opinion, That Wasn't Worth The Trouble You Got Into For Eating It.

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.

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.

Take What You Have Learned, And Move On.

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

Telling The Truth

It's One Thing To Want Money, But If You Find Yourself Choking On A Coin As You Wake, The Money Is Slightly Less Desirable.

Finding Yourself

Eyes As Black And As Shiny As Chips Of Obsidian Stared Back Into His. They Were Eyes Like Black Holes, Letting Nothing Out, Not Even Information.

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

You Don't Have To Test Everything To Destruction Just To See If You Made It Right.

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

I Had Started To Feel That Somewhere In The Second Half Of The 20th Century, The Idea Of Page-turning As A Good Thing Had Been Lost. You Were Getting Books That Were The Equivalent Of Absolutely Beautifully Prepared Dishes Of Food That Didn't Taste Like Anything Much.

People Are Icebergs. So Much Of Us Is Underneath.

I Am Remarkably Likeable. Few People Have Ever Been As Likeable As I Am. There Is, Frankly, No End To My Likeability. People Gather Together In Public Assemblies To Discuss How Much They Like Me. I Have Several Awards, And A Small Medal From A Small Country In South America Which Pays Tribute Both To How Much I Am Liked And My General All Around Wonderfulness. I Don't Have It On Me, Of Course. I Keep My Medals In My Sock Drawer.

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

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.

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?

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.

In Comics, Collaboration Saves Your Life. How Well You Can Work With An Artist, A Colorist, A Letterer, Is How Good Your Comic Is.

It Occurs To Me That The Peculiarity Of Most Things We Think Of As Fragile Is How Tough They Truly Are. There Were Tricks We Did With Eggs, As Children, To Show How They Were, In Reality, Tiny Load-bearing Marble Halls; While The Beat Of The Wings Of A Butterfly In The Right Place, We Are Told, Can Create A Hurricane Across An Ocean. 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 Remarkable Difficult To Kill.

I Was Not Happy As A Child, Although From Time To Time I Was Content. I Lived In Books More Than I Lived Anywhere Else.

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.

You Can Always Cheat An Honest Man, But It Takes More Work.

Anywhere That I Can't Check My Email Is A Good Place To Write!

With 'stardust', I Hope What I Was Doing Is Giving 30-year-olds And 40-year-olds And 25-year-olds And 60-year-olds A Chance To Get The Same Sense Of Wonder, The Same Feeling, The Same Magic, That They Got In Reading The Classic Fairy Tales As Children.

Bod Said, 'i Want To See Life. I Want To Hold It In My Hands. I Want To Leave A Footprint On The Sand Of A Desert Island. I Want To Play Football With People. I Want,' He Said, And Then He Paused And He Thought. 'i Want Everything.

And He Waited. It Was Only For A Few Seconds, But It Felt Like A Small Forever.

There's Definitely A Feeling With A Short Story That It's Pure Story Telling. You're Not Really Worried About Theme. You're Not Going To Stay With The Characters Long Enough To Live Your Life With Them. And You Have Different Kinds Of Relationships With Them.

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

It's Not A Bad Thing For A Writer Not To Feel At Home. Writers - We're Much More Comfortable At Parties Standing In The Corner Watching Everybody Else Having A Good Time Than We Are Mingling.

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.

What Would Be The Fun In Doing Things You Know Are Going To Work?

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.

Notoriety Wasn't As Good As Fame, But Was Heaps Better Than Obscurity.

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

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.

I'm Intrigued With Figuring Out The Places [where] The Horrible And The Beautiful Meet - That Aesthetic Fascinates Me.

It Stared At Them, And It Paused For A Hundred Years, Which Transpired In A Dozen Heart Beats.

In Hollywood The Man Who Cleans Your Pool Is An Actor. The Man Who Sells You Your Copy Of Variety Is An Actor. I Don't Think There's A Real Person Left In The Place.

She Found Herself To Be Quite Worried That Something Would Jump Out At Her, So She Began To Whistle. She Thought It Might Make It Harder For Things To Jump Out At Her, If She Was Whistling.

Coraline Shivered. She Preferred Her Other Mother To Have A Location: If She Were Nowhere, Then She Could Be Anywhere. And, After All, It Is Always Easier To Be Afraid Of Something You Cannot See.

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

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.

There Was A Hysteria In There, Certainly, But There Was Also The Exhaustion Of Someone Who Had Managed, Somehow, To Believe Several Dozen Impossible Things In The Last Twenty-four Hours, Without Ever Getting A Proper Breakfast.

Impossible Things

The Best Advice I Can Give On This Is, Once It's Done, To Put It Away Until You Can Read It With New Eyes. Finish The Short Story, Print It Out, Then Put It In A Drawer And Write Other Things. When You're Ready, Pick It Up And Read It, As If You've Never Read It Before. If There Are Things You Aren't Satisfied With As A Reader, Go In And Fix Them As A Writer: That's Revision.

We Are Always Living In The Final Days. What Have You Got? A Hundred Years Or Much, Much Less Until The End Of Your World.

Because If You Don't Stand Up For The Stuff You Don't Like, When They Come For The Stuff You Do Like, You've Already Lost.

Freedom Of Speech

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

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.

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

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.

I Wanted To Put A Reference To Masturbation In One Of The Scripts For The Sandman. It Was Immediately Cut By The Editor [karen Berger]. She Told Me, "there's No Masturbation In The Dc Universe." To Which My Reaction Was, "well, That Explains A Lot About The Dc Universe."

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

It's An America With Strange Mythic Depths. I See It As A Distorting Mirror; A Book Of Danger And Secrets, Of Romance And Magic. It's About The Soul Of America, Really. What People Brought To America; What Found Them When They Came; And The Things That Lie Sleeping Beneath It All.

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.

If You Do Not Value Libraries Then You Do Not Value Information Or Culture Or Wisdom. You Are Silencing The Voices Of The Past And You Are Damaging The Future.

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

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

Every Lover Is, In His Heart, A Madman, And, In His Head, A Minstrel.

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

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.

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.

Most Books On Witchcraft Will Tell You That Witches Work Naked. This Is Because Most Books On Witchcraft Were Written By Men.

You See, Evil Always Contains The Seeds Of Its Own Destruction. It Is Ultimately Negative, And Therefore Encompasses Its Downfall Even At Its Moments Of Apparent Triumph. No Matter How Grandiose, How Well-planned, How Apparently Foolproof Of An Evil Plan, The Inherent Sinfulness Will By Definition Rebound Upon Its Instigators. No Matter How Apparently Successful It May Seem Upon The Way, At The End It Will Wreck Itself. It Will Founder Upon The Rocks Of Iniquity And Sink Headfirst To Vanish Without Trace Into The Seas Of Oblivion.

I Think That Is Something That I Always Like In My Work - The Sense Of Inclusion Rather Than The Sense Of Otherness.

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.

Goodnight World. While I Sleep, I Hope You'll All Continue To Do Whatever It Is You Do. Unless You Murder Sleeping Authors. Don't Do That.

Parameters Are The Things You Bounce Off To Create Art.

I Must Confess, I Have Always Wondered What Lay Beyond Life, My Dear. Yeah, Everybody Wonders. And Sooner Or Later Everybody Gets To Find Out.

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.

[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.

We Have An Obligation To Make Things Beautiful. Not To Leave The World Uglier Than We Found It, Not To Empty The Oceans, Not To Leave Our Problems For The Next Generation.

You Get What Anybody Gets - You Get A Lifetime.

Inspirational Life

She Was The Storm, She Was The Lightning, She Was The Adult World With All Its Power And All Its Secrets And All Its Foolish Casual Cruelty.

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

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

The Only Ones Who Ever Come Here From Your Lands Are The Minstrels, And The Lovers, And The Mad. And You Don't Look Like Much Of A Minstrel, And You're— Pardon Me For Saying So Lad, But It's True— Ordinary As Cheese Crumbs. So It's Love If You Ask Me.

Sometimes Human Beings Are Very Much Like Bees. Bees Are Fiercely Protective Of Their Hive, Provided You Are Outside It. Once You’re In, The Workers Sort Of Assume That It Must Have Been Cleared By Management And Take No Notice; Various Freeloading Insects Have Evolved A Mellifluous Existence Because Of This Very Fact. Humans Act The Same Way.

Rain In The Graveyard, And The World Puddled Into Blurred Reflections.

The Young Man Shivered. He Rolled The Stock Themes Of Fantasy Over In His Mind: Cars And Stockbrokers And Commuters, Housewives And Police, Agony Columns And Commercials For Soap, Income Tax And Cheap Restaurants, Magazines And Credit Cards And Streetlights And Computers... 'it Is Escapism, True,' He Said, Aloud. 'but Is Not The Highest Impulse In Mankind The Urge Toward Freedom, The Drive To Escape?

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 Hope You Read Some Fine Books And Kiss Someone Who Thinks You're Wonderful.

Books Are Special, Books Are The Way We Talk To Generations That Have Not Turned Up Yet. The Fact That We Can Actually, Essentially Communicate With The People In Ancient Egypt, People In Rome And Greece, People In Ancient Britain, People In New York In The 1920s Who Can Communicate To Us And Change The Way We Think, And Change The Things That We Believe. I Think That Books Are Special. Books Are Sacred. And I Think That When You Are Selling Books, You Have To Remember That In All The Profits And Loss, In All Of That, You Are Treading On Sacred Ground.

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.

Books Are Defensive, Not Offensive (unless You're The Puzzled Adult Trying To Make The Kid With The Book Interact).

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.

I Thought About Moving South, About Continuing To Run, Continuing To Pretend I Was Alive. But It Was, I Knew Now, Much Too Late For That. There Are Doors, After All, Between The Living And The Dead, And They Swing In Both Directions.

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 Think Most Things Are Pretty Magical, And That It's Less A Matter Of Belief Than It Is One Of Just Stopping To Notice.

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.

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.

I Can Believe Things That Are True And Things That Aren't True And I Can Believe Things Where Nobody Knows If They're True Or Not.

I Hope You Will Have A Wonderful Year, That You'll Dream Dangerously And Outrageously, That You'll Make Something That Didn't Exist Before You Made It, That You Will Be Loved And That You Will Be Liked, And That You Will Have People To Love And To Like In Return. And, Most Importantly (because I Think There Should Be More Kindness And More Wisdom In The World Right Now), That You Will, When You Need To Be, Be Wise, And That You Will Always Be Kind.

I Really Don't Know What "i Love You" Means. I Think It Means "don't Leave Me Here Alone.

Richard Wondered How The Marquis Managed To Make Being Pushed Around In A Wheelchair Look Like A Romantic And Swashbuckling Thing To Do.

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.

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.

Religions Are, By Definition, Metaphors, After All: God Is A Dream, A Hope, A Woman, An Ironist, A Father, A City, A House Of Many Rooms, A Watchmaker Who Left His Prize Chronometer In The Desert, Someone Who Loves You - Even, Perhaps, Against All Evidence, A Celestial Being Whose Only Interest Is To Make Sure Your Football Team, Army, Business, Or Marriage Thrives, Prospers, And Triumphs Over All Opposition.

There Are Lots Of Artists In The World. But There's Only One You. And The Only Person Who Has Your Point Of View Is You. If You Decide Not To Make Things, All You've Done Is Deprive The World Of All The Stuff That Only You Could Have Brought To It.

You'll Think This Is A Bit Silly, But I'm A Bit--well, I Have A Thing About Birds." "what, A Phobia?" "sort Of." "well, That's The Common Term For An Irrational Fear Of Birds." "what Do They Call A Rational Fear Of Birds, Then?

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.

This Is A Work Of Fiction. All The Characters In It, Human And Otherwise, Are Imaginary, Excepting Only Certain Of The Fairy Folk, Whom It Might Be Unwise To Offend By Casting Doubts On Their Existence. Or Lack Thereof.

Dreams Are Hopes, And Echoes Of Hope.

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.

Genre Fiction, As Terry Pratchett Has Pointed Out, Is A Stew. You Take Stuff Out Of The Pot, You Put Stuff Back. The Stew Bubbles On.

I Remember Making That Vow, The One Not To Forget. Not To Remember What Happened, But To Remember Who I Was And How I Felt.

When I Was Young I Was A Fool. So Wrap Me Up In Dreams And Death.

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.

How Can You Be Happy In This World? You Have A Hole In Your Heart. You Have A Gateway Inside You To Lands Beyond The World You Know. They Will Call You, As You Grow.

Any Way, Death Is So Final, Isn't It? "is It?" Asked Richard. "sometimes," Said The Marquis De Carabas. And They Went Down.

Too Much Talking These Days. Talk Talk Talk. This Country Would Get Along Much Better If People Learned How To Suffer In Silence.

I Think I Could Be A Perfectly Decent Cat. I've Been Around Cats Long Enough To Know What The Rules Of Being A Cat Are. When All Else Fails, Wash. And I Think I Could Master The Thing That Cats Do, Where They Stalk Away Pretending They Meant To Do Whatever It Was In The First Place; Showing Their Wounded Dignity.

Sometimes The Best Way To Learn Something Is By Doing It Wrong And Looking At What You Did.

However You Must Have Sensed A Lurking 'but' Skulking Beneath My Happy, Blithe, And Chipper Exterior. A Minuscule Vexation, Like The Teeniest Lump Of Raw Liver Sticking To The Inside Of My Boot.

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.

A Disturbing Novel About Dreams And Wishes, A Nightmarish Distaff Monkey's Paw Of A Book That It's Impossible To Forget. Lisa Tuttle Remains Our Preeminent Chronicler Of Family Madness And Desire.

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.

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.

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.

When You Start Off, You Have To Deal With The Problems Of Failure. You Need To Be Thickskinned, To Learn That Not Every Project Will Survive.

If You Want To Imagine The Future, Imagine A Boy And His Dog And His Friends. And A Summer That Never Ends.

Well," He Said, "f’r Example, If They Ask Where You’ve Come From, You Could Say ‘behind Me,’and If They Asked Where You’re Going, You’d Say ‘in Front Of Me.

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

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

Love Me When I Least Deserve It, Because That’s When I Really Need It.

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.

The Old Rules Are Crumbling And Nobody Knows What The New Rules Are...so Make Up Your Own Rules.

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.

Life Is Sometimes Hard. Things Go Wrong, In Life And In Love And In Business And In Friendship And In Health And In All Other Ways That Life Can Go Wrong. And When Things Get Tough, This Is What You Should Do. Make Good Art.

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.

There Are So Many Fragile Things, After All. People Break So Easily, And So Do Dreams And Hearts.

I Suspect That Most Authors Don't Really Want Criticism, Not Even Constructive Criticism. They Want Straight-out, Unabashed, Unashamed, Fulsome, Informed, Naked Praise, Arriving By The Shipload Every Fifteen Minutes Or So.

I Think That Pretty Much Every Form Of Fiction (i’d Include Fantasy, Obviously) Can Actually Be A Real Escape From Places Where You Feel Bad, And From Bad Places. It Can Be A Safe Place You Go, Like Going On Holiday, And It Can Be Somewhere That, While You’ve Escaped, Actually Teaches You Things You Need To Know When You Go Back, That Gives You Knowledge And Armour And Tools To Change The Bad Place You Were In. So No, They’re Not Escapist. They’re Escape.

They Believe Themselves Lucifer's Equals, Cain, All These Pitiful Little Gnats. But There Is Only One That We Have Ever Owned To Be Our Superior. There Is But One Greater Than Us, And To Him... To Him We No Longer Speak.

The Lord Of Dreams Learns That One Must Change Or Die, And Makes His Decision

The Ideas Aren't That Important. Really They Aren't. Everyone's Got An Idea For A Book, A Movie, A Story, A Tv Series.

And, Selfish And Scared, I Wonder How Much More He Has To Give.

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.

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.

Wherever You Go, You Take Yourself With You.

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

The Stuff You Bring Back From Dreams Is Free.

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.

One Of The Things I'm Concerned About Is That I Really Want To Make Sure The Races Of All The Characters Are Kept. I Don't Like It When Black Characters Become White In Movies, Or Things Like That.

He Was Alone In The Darkness Once More, But The Darkness Became Brighter And Brighter Until It Was Burning Like The Sun.

I Went Away In My Head, Into A Book. That Was Where I Went Whenever Real Life Was Too Hard Or Too Inflexible.

If You Don't Know It's Impossible It's Easier To Do.

Why Do They Blame Me For All Their Little Failings? They Use My Name As If I Spent My Entire Days Sitting On Their Shoulders, Forcing Them To Commits Acts They Would Otherwise Find Repulsive. 'the Devil Made Me Do It.' I Have Never Made One Of Them Do Anything. Never. They Live Their Own Tiny Lives. I Do Not Live Their Lives For Them.

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.

Also, I've Already Won All The Awards.

Name The Different Kinds Of People,’ Said Miss Lupescu. ‘now.’ Bod Thought For A Moment. ‘the Living,’ He Said. ‘er. The Dead.’ He Stopped. Then, ‘... Cats?’ He Offered, Uncertainly.

People Ask Me What My Predictions Are For Publishing And How Digital Is Changing Things And I Tell Them My Only Real Prediction Is That Is It's All Changing. Amazon, Google And All Of Those Things Probably Aren't The Enemy. The Enemy Right Now Is Simply Refusing To Understand That The World Is Changing.

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

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.

Work. Home. The Pub. Meeting Girls. Living In The City. Life. Is That All There Is?

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.

I Decided That I Would Do My Best In The Future Not To Write Books Just For Money. If You Didn't Get The Money Then You Didn't Have Anything. If I Did The Work I Was Proud Of And I Didn't Get The Money, At Least I'd Have The Work.

Trees There Were, Old As Trees Can Be, Huge And Grasping With Hearts Black As Sin. Strange Trees That Some Said Walked In The Night.

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.

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

When You Say Words A Lot They Don't Mean Anything. Or Maybe They Don't Mean Anything Anyway, And We Just Think They Do.

The Lower You Start, The More Opportunities You Have.

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.

My Very Small Part In Watchmen Is That, Every Now And Then, Alan Would Phone Me: ''neil, You're An Educated Man. Where Does It Say...'' He Would Need A Quote From The Bible, Or An Essay About Owls. I Was His Occasional Research Assistant.

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

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

Las Vegas Has Become A Child's Picture-book Dream Of A City -- Here A Storybook Castle, There A Sphinx-flanked Black Pyramid Beaming White Light Into The Darkness As A Landing Beam For Ufos, And Everywhere Neon Oracles And Twisting Screens Predict Happiness And Good Fortune, Announce Singers And Comedians And Magicians In Residence Or On Their Way, And The Lights Always Flash And Beckon And Call.

I Think I Love My Dreaming Process Because One Of The Things That My Dreaming Process Does Is Sort Out Stories For Me.

Writer Advice... Write. Finish Things. Go For Walks. Read A Lot & Outside Your Comfort Zone. Stay Interested. Daydream. Write.

Sleep My Little Baby-oh Sleep Until You Waken When You Wake You'll See The World If I'm Not Mistaken... Kiss A Lover Dance A Measure, Find Your Name And Buried Treasure... Face Your Life Its Pain, Its Pleasure, Leave No Path Untaken.

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.

There Will Always Be People Who Are Much Better At Doing This Or Doing That, But You Are The Only You.

Use Your Blog To Connect. Use It As You. Don’t ‘network’ Or ‘promote.’ Just Talk.

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.

Look. I Brought You Here To Give You A Choice-" "you Didn't Bring Us Here," Said Nick. "you're Here," Said Bod. "i Wanted You Here. I Came Here. You Followed Me. Same Thing.

People Talk About Escapism As If It's A Bad Thing... Once You've Escaped, Once You Come Back, The World Is Not The Same As When You Left It. You Come Back To It With Skills, Weapons, Knowledge You Didn't Have Before. Then You Are Better Equipped To Deal With Your Current Reality.

America Was, To Them, The Place That Good People Went To When They Died. They Were Prepared To Believe Just About Anything Could Happen In America.

Belinda Stared Into The Fire For Some Time, Thinking About What She Had In Her Life, And What She Had Given Up; And Whether It Would Be Worse To Love Someone Who Was No Longer There, Or Not To Love Someone Who Was.

Songs Remain. They Last...a Song Can Last Long After The Events And The People In It Are Dust And Dreams And Gone. That's The Power Of Songs.

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've Known Ambitious People With No Aptitude For The Thing They Did. Most Of Whom, Rather Terrifyingly, Tended To Succeed.

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.

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.

There's Not Much High And Low Culture Any More: There's Just Mingling Streams Of Art And What Matters Is Whether It's Good Art Or Bad Art.

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.

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

The Magic Of Comics Is That There Are Three People Involved In Any Comic: There Is Whoever Is Writing It, And Whoever Is Drawing It, And Then There's Whoever Is Reading It, Because The Really Important Things In Comics Are Occurring In The Panel Gutters, They're Occurring Between Panels As The Person Reading The Comics Is Moving You Through, Is Creating A Film In Their Heads.

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.

Trending Author

Stephen Ambrose

Category