Background Image

...

The Cat Wrinkled Its Nose And Managed To Look Unimpressed. "calling Cats," It Confided, "tends To Be A Rather Overrated Activity. Might As Well Call A Whirlwind.

-Neil Gaiman

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

The Cat Wrinkled Its

Neil Gaiman

...

The Cat Wrinkled Its Nose And Managed To Look Unimpressed. "calling Cats," It Confided, "tends To Be A Rather Overrated Activity. Might As Well Call A Whirlwind.

Views: 6

Topic

More From Neil Gaiman

Because,' She Said, 'when You're Scared But You Still Do It Anyway, That's Brave.

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.

There Are Characters In Some Short Stories Who Exist As People, And There Are Other Characters In Different Short Stories Who Exist As Purely Literary Constructs. You Know, The Young Man In "forbidden Brides Of The Faceless Slaves In The Secret House Of The Night Of Dread Desire" - I Probably Got That Right - Is A Literary Construct, And Enjoys Being A Literary Construct. He Has No Life Off Stage, Whereas The Young Men In "how To Talk To Girls At Parties" Were As Near To Being Real Human Beings As I Could Possibly Get Them.

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

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.

The Cat Looked As If It Were About To Say Something Sarcastic. Then It Flicked Its Whiskers And Said, "challenge Her. There's No Guarantee She'll Play Fair, But Her Kind Of Thing Loves Games And Challenges.

Twitter Is Great And It's Glorious And It's Easy, But If Somebody Comes Up With Something Kind Of Like Twitter Tomorrow, That's Better Or Smarter Or More Useful, In Three Weeks Time, Twitter Could More Or Less Be History Because That's How Fast Things Go.

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.

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

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

What Need, Dunstan Wondered, Could Someone Have Of The Storm-filled Eggshells?

If I Were Only Allowed To Read Or Enjoy Art Or Listen To Music Made By People Whose Opinions And Beliefs Were The Same As Mine, I Think The World Would Be A Pretty Dismal Sort Of A Place.

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.

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.

You Don't Have To Stay Anywhere Forever.

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.

I Suppose The Point You Grow Up Is The Point You Let The Dreams Go.

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.

The Price Of Getting What You Want, Is Getting What Once You Wanted.

Getting What You Want

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 Think I’ll Dismember The World And Then I’ll Dance In The Wreckage.

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.

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

You Think You're Being Given All Of These Things: Phones That Can Communicate With Other Devices, Car Service That's Better Than A Taxi, All Of These Amazing Things That Are Available To You At Any Time. It Isn't Until You've Swum Across The River That You Can Start To See The Negative Aspects Of It All.

The Ties Of Blood," Said Spider, "are Stronger Than Water." Water's Not Strong," Objected Fat Charlie.

Go Get Your Heart Broken.

Picking One Of Your Favorite Creation Or Character Is Like Picking The Best One Of Your Children! I'm Not Sure It Really Works. My Very Favorite Characters Tend To Be Ones I Can Go Back To And Look At, And Have No Idea How They Popped Out Of My Head.

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

Every Hour Wounds. The Last One Kills.

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

There Was A Table Laid With Jellies And Trifles, With A Party Hat Beside Each Place, And A Birthday Cake With Seven Candles On It In The Center Of The Table. The Cake Had A Book Drawn On It, In Icing. My Mother, Who Had Organized The Party, Told Me That The Lady At The Bakery Said That They Had Never Put A Book On A Birthday Cake Before, And That Mostly For Boys It Was Footballs Or Spaceships. I Was Their First Book.

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

If The Same Object From Two Different Times Touches Itself, One Of Two Things Will Happen. Either The Universe Will Cease To Exist. Or Three Remarkable Dwarfs Will Dance Through The Streets With Flowerpots On Their Heads.

You Were Her Way Here, And It's A Dangerous Thing To Be A Door.

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 Saw The World I Had Walked Since My Birth And I Understood How Fragile It Was, That The Reality Was A Thin Layer Of Icing On A Great Dark Birthday Cake Writhing With Grubs And Nightmares And Hunger.

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

There Are Little Pockets Of Old Time In London, Where Things And Places Stay The Same, Like Bubbles In Amber,” She Explained. “there’s A Lot Of Time In London, And It Has To Go Somewhere—it Doesn’t All Get Used Up At Once.” “i May Still Be Hung Over,” Sighed Richard. “that Almost Made Sense.

In A Novel, You Can Always Go Back And Make It Look Like You Knew What You Were Doing All Along Before The Thing Goes Out And Gets Published.

You Get Work However You Get Work. People Keep Working, In A Freelance World, And More And More Of Today's World Is Freelance, Because Their Work Is Good, And Because They Are Easy To Get Along With, And Because They Deliver The Work On Time. And You Don't Even Need All Three. Two Out Of Three Is Fine. People Will Tolerate How Unpleasant You Are If Your Work Is Good And You Deliver It On Time. They'll Forgive The Lateness Of The Work If It's Good, And If They Like You. And You Don't Have To Be As Good As The Others If You're On Time And It's Always A Pleasure To Hear From You.

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

You're Alive, Bod. That Means You Have Infinite Potential. You Can Do Anything, Make Anything, Dream Anything. If You Can Change The World, The World Will Change. Potential. Once You're Dead, It's Gone. Over. You've Made What You've Made, Dreamed Your Dream, Written Your Name. You May Be Buried Here, You May Even Walk. But That Potential Is Finished.

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

He Had Had A Severe Shock Some Weeks Earlier, When, Having Narrowly Failed To Capture A Large Grey-brown Hare For His Dinner, It Had Stopped At The Edge Of The Forest, Looked At Him With Disdain, And Said, 'well, I Hope You're Proud Of Yourself, That's All,' And Had Scampered Off Into The Long Grass

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

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

You Know, It's Weird Being Interviewed! Because The Weird Thing About Being Interviewed Is You Get Asked These Questions That You've Never Thought About, And You Find Out What You Think As You Answer.

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.

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.

One Word After Another. That's The Only Way That Novels Get Written And, Short Of Elves Coming In The Night And Turning Your Jumbled Notes Into Chapter Nine, It's The Only Way To Do It. So Keep On Keeping On. Write Another Word And Then Another.

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.

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.

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.

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.

You Must Have A Bladder Like Lake Erie. I Think Empires Rose And Fell In The Time It Took You To Pee. I Could Hear It The Whole Time." Thank You. Do You Want Something?

How Would You Feel About Life If Death Was Your Older Sister?

I Don't Know If Any Single Book Made Me Want To Write. C.s. Lewis Was The First Writer To Make Me Aware That Somebody Was Writing The Book I Was Reading - These Wonderful Parenthetical Asides To The Reader.

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

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.

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.

When Things Go Wrong, This Is What You Should Do. Make Good Art.

When Things Get Tough

One Thing That I Get From A Lot Of People With American Gods Is People Saying That They Would Love Some Kind Of Glossary With A List Of All The Gods And Who They Are, So That They Can Look Them Up.

Make Glorious And Fantastic Mistakes.

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?

Most Of Us Only Find Our Own Voices After We've Sounded Like A Lot Of Other People.

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

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.

Goodbyes Are Overrated.

Tools, Of Course, Can Be The Subtlest Of Traps.

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.

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.

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.

Everything Has To Be Intrinsic Plot-wise In The Same Way, To Use The Linda Williams Analogy But To Move It On A Bit, As Musicals - In Old Musicals, Like In An Old Cole Porter Musical, You Get The Action, Then They Do A Song, Which Reflects A Moment - Everything Stops While That Is Being Sung - And Then You Restart. These Days In Most Musicals, The Plot Keeps Moving Through The Song. I Think It Would Be Nice If Someone Constructed Some Pornography Where The Sex Continues To Propel You Through The Story.

I Don't Think You Should Ever Insult People Unintentionally: If You're Doing It, You Ought To Mean It.

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

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.

Fiction Takes Us To Places That We Would Never Otherwise Go, And Puts Us Behind Eyes That Are Not Our Own.

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

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

If You Cared Enough About Your Characters, What Happened To Them Was Interesting... It's Important To Care About Them, About Who They Are And What They Do...i Don't Really Care Whose Side They Are On, And They Can Be Monstrous On The Outside Or, Worse, On The Inside, But You Still Have To Want To Spend Time With Them.

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 Imagination Is A Muscle. If It Is Not Exercised, It Atrophies.

The World Is Always Ending For Someone. It’s A Good Line. I Give It To The Father Of The Child. He Says It To His Wife. ‘the World Is Always Ending For Someone,’ He Says. She Is Trying To Quieten The Baby, And Does Not Hear Him. I Doubt That It Would Matter If She Did.

I've Been Making A List Of The Things They Don't Teach You At School. They Don't Teach You How To Love Somebody. They Don't Teach You How To Be Famous. They Don't Teach You How To Be Rich Or How To Be Poor. They Don't Teach You How To Walk Away From Someone You Don't Love Any Longer. They Don't Teach You How To Know What's Going On In Someone Else's Mind. They Don't Teach You What To Say To Someone Who's Dying. They Don't Teach You Anything Worth Knowing.

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

Truly Life Is Wasted On The Living.

People Can Get Involved In Wonderfully Creative Ways That Have Nothing To Do With You, But Spark Off Things You Begin With.

Are You Scared?’ Asked Mr. Ibis. ‘not Really.’ ‘well, Try To Cultivate The Emotions Of True Awe And Spiritual Terror, As We Walk. They Are The Appropriate Feelings For The Situation At Hand.

My Ideal Reader Is Me. And Yes, My Ideal Reader Comes With Me And Is Forgiving.

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.

I Knew Enough About Adults To Know That If Did Tell Them What Had Happened, I Would Not Be Believed. Adults Rarely Seemed To Believe Me When I Told The Truth Anyway.

You've A Good Heart. Sometimes That's Enough To See You Safe Wherever You Go. But Mostly, It's Not.

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.

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.

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

The Biggest Pitfall To Avoid Is Not Writing. Not Writing Is Really, Really Easy To Do, Especially If You're A Young Writer. The Hope That Elves Will Come In The Night And Finish It For You, Is A Very Common One To Have. That Is My Main Recommendation - You Have To Write, And You Have To Finish What You Write And Beyond That, It's All Detail.

We Have To Get The... The Thing I Got... To The Angel. And Then He'll Tell Door About Her Family, And He'll Tell Me How To Get Home." Lamia Looked At Hunter With Delight. "and He Can Give You Brains," She Said, Cheerfully, "and Me A Heart.

I Like Airplanes. I Like Anywhere That Isn't A Proper Place. I Like In Betweens.

Chow^tm Contained Spun, Plaited, And Woven Protein Molecules, Capped And Coded, Carefully Designed To Be Ignored By Even The Most Ravenous Digestive Tract Enzymes; No-cal Sweeteners; Mineral Oils Replacing Vegetable Oils; Fibrous Materials, Colorings, And Flavorings. The End Result Was A Foodstuff Almost Indistinguishable From Any Other Except For Two Things. Firstly, The Price, Which Was Slightly Higher, And Secondly, The Nutritional Content, Which Was Roughly Equivalent To That Of A Sony Walkman.

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

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.

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.

I'm Not Blessed, Or Merciful. I'm Just Me. I've Got A Job To Do, And I Do It. Listen: Even As We're Talking, I'm There For Old And Young, Innocent And Guilty, Those Who Die Together And Those Who Die Alone. I'm In Cars And Boats And Planes; In Hospitals And Forests And Abbatoirs. For Some Folks Death Is A Release, And For Others Death Is An Abomination, A Terrible Thing. But In The End, I'm There For All Of Them.

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

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.

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'.

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.

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.

For Some, It Was Easier To Take The Leap From The Leafless Tree And Dance On Nothing Until Dancing Was Done.

As A Teenager I Wrote To R.a. Lafferty. And He Responded, Too, With Letters That Were Like R.a. Lafferty Short Stories, Filled With Elliptical Answers To Straight Questions And Simple Answers To Complicated Ones.

It Would Have Been Hard For Fat Charlie To Say Exactly When The Accumulation Of Birds On The Wire Mesh Moved From Interesting To Terrifying. It Was Somewhere In The First Hundred Or So, Anyway. And It Was In The Way They Didn't Coo, Or Caw, Or Trill, Or Song. They Simply Landed On The Wire, And They Watched Him.

He Shivered. His Coat Was Thin, And It Was Obvious He Would Not Get His Kiss, Which He Found Puzzling. The Manly Heroes Of The Penny Dreadfuls And Shilling Novels Never Had These Problems Getting Kissed.

Night Was Spreading Slowly Around The Spinning Earth. It Should Have Been Full Of Pinpricks Of Light. It Was Not. There Were Five Billion People Down There. What Was Going To Happen Soon Would Make Barbarism Look Like A Picnic - Hot, Nasty, And Eventually Given Over To The Ants.

You Can't Make Me Love You.

Sometimes You Wake Up. Sometimes The Fall Kills You. And Sometimes, When You Fall, You Fly.

He Was Painfully Shy, Which, As Is Often The Manner Of The Painfully Shy, He Overcompensated For By Being Too Loud At The Wrong Times.

Agnes Was The Worst Prophet That's Ever Existed. Because She Was Always Right. That's Why The Book Never Sold.

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

We Get To Experience The Same Thing In Very Different Ways With Different Parts Of Ourselves.

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

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

I Already Killed You Once Today, What Does It Take To Teach Some People?

That's The Trouble With Living Things. Don't Last Very Long. Kittens One Day, Old Cats The Next. And Then Just Memories. And The Memories Fade And Blend And Smudge Together.

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

The Only People I Ever Get Irritated With Are The Ones Who Announce, Using My Twitter Handle, That They Are No Longer Following Me And Why.

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

Start Telling The Stories That Only You Can Tell.

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

I Think You Have To Accept That An Artist Also Has A Relationship With His Or Her Art And His Or Her Fans: You Are In An Open Relationship Whether You Like It Or Not. Give The Artist Room To Go Into The Place They Create (literally Or Metaphorically) . And Love Them When They Can't Remember Where They Put Their Keys.

There Was A Smile Dancing On His Lips, Although It Was A Wary Smile, For The World Is A Bigger Place Than A Little Graveyard On A Hill; And There Would Be Dangers In It And Mysteries, New Friends To Make, Old Friends To Rediscover, Mistakes To Be Made And Many Paths To Be Walked Before He Would, Finally, Return To The Graveyard Or Ride With The Lady On The Broad Back Of Her Great Grey Stallion.

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

What's It Like Then?" Asked Old Bailey. "being Dead?" The Marquis Sighed. And Then He Twisted His Lips Up Into A Smile, And With A Glitter Of His Old Self, He Replied, "live Long Enough, Old Bailey, And You Can Find Out For Yourself.

Everybody Going To Be Dead One Day, Just Give Them Time.

Anyone Who Calls You "little Lady" Has Already Excluded You From The Set Of People Worth Listening To.

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

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.

I Think If You Decide That Any Book Is About Only One Thing You're Probably Wrong. Even If That Thing Is In There.

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.

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

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.

We Look About In Puzzlement At Our World, With A Sense Of Unease And Disquiet. We Think Of Ourselves As Scholars In Arcane Liturgies, Single Men Trapped In Worlds Beyond Our Devising. The Truth Is Far Simpler: There Are Things In The Darkness Beneath Us That Wish Us Harm.

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.

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

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

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.

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'm Sure There's An Alternate Universe Where I Got To Become A Pulpy Science Fiction Writer.

Science Fiction

Fiction Writers

My Heart… It Feels Like My Chest Can Barely Contain It. Like It’s Trying To Escape Because It Doesn’t Belong To Me Any More. It Belongs To You.

None Of This Is Truly Happening," He Said To Shadow. He Sounded Miserable. "it's All In Your Head. Best Not To Think Of It.

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.

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

Names Come And Names Go.

I Would Read. I Would Explore

You Know I Love You,' Said The Other Mother Flatly. 'you Have A Very Funny Way Of Showing It,' Said Coraline.

I've Never Known Anyone Who Was What He Or She Seemed; Or At Least, Was Only What He Or She Seemed. People Carry Worlds Within Them.

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.

I Would Not Wish To Marry Someone Who Had Already Been Married. It Would Be,' She Opined, 'like Having Someone Else Break In One's Own Pony.

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 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?

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.

And Sometimes When You Fall... You Fly...

For Some Folks Death Is Release, And For Others Death Is An Abomination, A Terrible Thing. But In The End, I'm There For All Of Them.

I Am Anti-life, The Beast Of Judgment. I Am The Dark At The End Of Everything. The End Of Universes, Gods, Worlds…of Everything. And What Will You Be Then, Dreamlord?" "i Am Hope.

Stories May Well Be Lies, But They Are Good Lies That Say True Things, And Which Can Sometimes Pay The Rent.

Nobody Looks Like What They Really Are On The Inside. You Don’t. I Don’t. People Are Much More Complicated Than That. It’s True Of Everybody.

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.

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

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

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

As A Journalist, I Would Talk To Writers, Directors, Creative People, And Discover That For An Awful Lot Of Them, The Moment They Became Successful, That Was All They Were Allowed To Do. So You End Up Talking To The Bestselling Science-fiction Author Who Wrote A Historical-fiction Novel That Everybody Loved, But No One Would Publish.

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

I Guess It's Just Another One Of Life's Little Mysteries." "i'm Tired Of Mysteries." "yeah? I Think They Add A Kind Of Zest To The World. Like Salt In A Stew.

A Philosopher Once Asked, "are We Human Because We Gaze At The Stars, Or Do We Gaze At Them Because We Are Human?" Pointless, Really..."do The Stars Gaze Back?" Now That's A Question.

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

Finish What You're Writing. Whatever You Have To Do To Finish It, Finish It.

The Best Thing—in Shadow's Opinion, Perhaps The Only Good Thing—about Being In Prison Was A Feeling Of Relief. The Feeling That He'd Plunged As Low As He Could Plunge And He'd Hit Bottom. He Didn't Worry That The Man Was Going To Get Him, Because The Man Had Got Him. He Was No Longer Scared Of What Tomorrow Might Bring, Because Yesterday Had Brought It.

I Make Art, Sometimes I Make True Art, And Sometimes It Fills The Empty Places In My Life. Some Of Them. Not All.

I Enjoy Writing Scripts. I Can Find Out What Happens. With An Outline, I Feel Like I'm Doing An Architectural Diagram Of Something.

It Does Not Matter Where You Come From, If You Walk Toward The Truth You Will Reach It, Whatever Path You Take.

To Journalists My Move From Comics To Films To Best-selling Novels Was Resembling Those Little Evolutionary Maps Too Much, Where You See The Fish, And Then It Can Walk, And Then It's An Ape And Then It Gets Up On Its Hind Legs And Finally It Is A Man. I Didn't Like That. I Didn't Like The Fact That There Was Something Rather Amphibious About Me - At Least In Their Heads - Back When I Was Writing Comics. So I Like Continuing To Write Comics, If Only Because It Points Out That I Haven't Just Started To Walk Upright Or Left The Water.

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

I Was Bright, And I Could Use That As A Weapon: Words Can Wound, Whatever Those Sticks And Stones Sayings Claim About Them Never Hurting, And I Could Use Them If I Had To.

I Love Learning. I Tend To Stop Doing Things Once I Get Good At Them, And To Try Something Else I'm Not As Good At, Leaving A Bunch Of Fans Going, "but He Was Really Good At That. Why Isn't He Still Doing It?"

Birds Are The Last Of The Dinosaurs. Tiny Velociraptors With Wings. Devouring Defenseless Wiggly Things And, And Nuts, And Fish, And, And Other Birds. They Get The Early Worms. And Have You Ever Watched A Chicken Eat? They May Look Innocent, But Birds Are, Well, They're Vicious.

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

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

Let's Start A New Tomorrow, Today.

Cherish Every Moment

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

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

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

They Were Kissing. Put Like That, And You Could Be Forgiven For Presuming That This Was A Normal Kiss, All Lips And Skin And Possibly Even A Little Tongue. You'd Miss How He Smiled, How His Eyes Glowed. And Then, After The Kiss Was Done, How He Stood, Like A Man Who Had Just Discovered The Art Of Standing And Had Figured Out How To Do It Better Than Anyone Else Who Would Ever Come Along.

Entropy And Optimism: The Twin Forces That Make The World Go Around.

So I Went Out And Bought Myself A Copy Of The Writer And Artist Yearbook, Bought Lots Of Magazines And Got On The Phone And Talked To Editors About Ideas For Stories. Pretty Soon I Found Myself Hired To Do Interviews And Articles And Went Off And Did Them.

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

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

How Big Are Souls Anyway?" Asked Coraline. The Other Mother Sat Down At The Kitchen Table And Leaned Against The Back Wall, Saying Nothing. She Picked At Her Teeth With A Long Crimson-varnished Fingernail, Then She Tapped The Finger, Gently, Tap-tap-tap Against The Polished Black Surface Of Her Black Button Eyes.

Adult Helplessness Destroys Children. Or It Forces Them To Become Tiny Adults Of Their Own.

The Tongue Is The Most Remarkable. For We Use It Both To Taste Out Sweet Wine And Bitter Poison, Thus Also Do We Utter Words Both Sweet And Sout With The Same Tongue.

I Believe In A Personal God Who Cares About Me And Worries And Oversees Everything I Do. I Believe In An Impersonal God Who Set The Universe In Motion And Went Off To Hang With Her Girlfriends And Doesn't Even Know That I'm Alive. I Believe In An Empty And Godless Universe Of Causal Chaos, Background Noise, And Sheer Blind Luck... 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.

Trending Author

Martha Gellhorn

Peter Kropotkin

Hector Elizondo

Category