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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.

-Neil Gaiman

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We Look About In

Neil Gaiman

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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.

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I Remembered That, And, Remembering That, I Remembered Everything.

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.

Grown-ups Don't Look Like Grown-ups On The Inside Either. Outside, They're Big And Thoughtless And They Always Know What They're Doing. Inside, They Look Just Like They Always Have. Like They Did When They Were Your Age. Truth Is, There Aren't Any Grown-ups. Not One, In The Whole Wide World.

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.

I Will Be Brave, Thought Coraline. No, I Am Brave.

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

There Are A Hundred Things She Has Tried To Chase Away The Things She Won't Remember And That She Can't Even Let Herself Think About Because That's When The Birds Scream And The Worms Crawl And Somewhere In Her Mind It's Always Raining A Slow Endless Drizzle.

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.

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

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

I Very Rarely Want To Go Back And Fix Things, Because I'm Much More Interested In The Next Thing, And In Taking What I Learned From The Things That Don't Work, And Applying Them To New Things That May Work.

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

Life Is A Disease, Sexually Transmitted And Fatal.

Words Can Be Worrisome, Poeple Complex, Motives And Manners Unclear, Grant Her The Wisdom To Choose Her Path Right, Free From Unkindness And Fear.

I Wish Being A Beekeeper, Which I Am, Gave You A Free Pass On The Carbon Footprint, But It Doesn't.

Carbon Footprint

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

Shadow Had Heard Too Many People Telling Each Other Not To Repress Their Feelings, To Let Their Emotions Out, Let The Pain Go. Shadow Thought There Was A Lot To Be Said For Bottling Up Emotions. If You Did It Long Enough And Deep Enough, He Suspected, Pretty Soon You Wouldn't Feel Anything At All.

You Can Take For Granted That People Know More Or Less What A Street, A Shop, A Beach, A Sky, An Oak Tree Look Like. Tell Them What Makes This One Different.

Biting's Excellent. It's Like Kissing - Only There Is A Winner.

I'd Love To Think That People In The Future Would Gather In Theatres, At Conventions, And In Darkened Rooms, And Read It Out To Each Other.

There Was No Moon But The Night Sky Was A Riot Of Crisp And Glittering Autumn Stars. There Were Streetlights Too And Lights On Buildings And On Bridges Which Looked Like Earthbound Stars And They Glimmered Repeated As They Were Reflected With The City In The Night Water Of The Thames. It’s Fairyland Thought Richard.

Soon Enough His Head Would Be Swimming With Tales Of Derring-do And High Adventure, Tales Of Beautiful Maidens Kissed, Of Evildoers Shot With Pistols Or Fought With Swords, Of Bags Of Gold, Of Diamonds As Big As The Tip Of Your Thumb, Of Lost Cities And Of Vast Mountains, Of Steam-trains And Clipper Ships, Of Pampas, Oceans, Deserts, Tundra.

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

I Have A Really High Tolerance Level For Twits. I Really Do.

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

I Would Like To See Anyone, Prophet, King Or God, Convince A Thousand Cats To Do The Same Thing At The Same Time.

The Doctor: Sorry, Do You Have A Name? Idris: Seven Hundred Years And Finally He Asks. The Doctor: But What Do I Call You? Idris: I Think You Call Me... Sexy? The Doctor: [embarrassed] Only When We're Alone. Idris: We Are Alone. The Doctor: Oh. Come On Then, Sexy.

She Didn't Have A Daddy?" I Asked. "no." "did You Have A Daddy?" "you're All Questions, Aren't You? No, Love. We Never Went In For That Sort Of Thing. You Only Need Men If You Want To Breed More Men.

We Don't Have A Clue What's Really Going Down, We Just Kid Ourselves That We're In Control Of Our Lives While A Paper's Thickness Away Things That Would Drive Us Mad If We Thought About Them For Too Long Play With Us, And Move Us Around From Room To Room, And Put Us Away At Night When They're Tired, Or Bored.

All Your Questions Can Be Answered, If That Is What You Want. But Once You Learn Your Answers, You Can Never Unlearn Them.

Unanswered Questions

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.

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

Where Does Contagion End And Art Begin?

The View Changes From Where You Are Standing. Words Can Wound, And Wounds Can Heal. All Of These Things Are True.

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.

I Like Comic Conventions. I Genuinely Like Comic Conventions. I Like Wandering Around From Table To Table; I Like Wandering Up And Down Artist's Alley And Saying "hello" To People. I Like Hanging Out On The Dc Booth. I Can't Do That Anymore. I'd Like To, But I Can't. I Physically Can't. If I Stop Moving, Somebody Will Come Up To Me With Something To Sign, And If I Sign It, Somehow It's Like Ants Sensing Sugar. There Will Be Fifty Or A Hundred People Around Me And Then Fire Marshals Will Come And Then I'm Trapped In A Crowd. It's Bizarre.

Truly Life Is Wasted On The Living.

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.

She Was Witchy, Yes, And In Charge Of A Cauldron Roiling With Ideas And Stories, But She Always Gave The Impression That The Stories, The Ones She Wrote And Wrote So Very Well And So Wisely, Had Simply Happened, And That All She Had Done Was To Hold The Pen. (on Diana Wynne Jones)

A Short Story Is The Ultimate Close-up Magic Trick -- A Couple Of Thousand Words To Take You Around The Universe Or Break Your Heart.

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

It Seems Like Every Time I Agree To Work With A Video Game Company They Go Out Of Business. I Stopped Because I Was Starting To Feel Guilty.

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

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?"

Fear Is Contagious. You Can Catch It. Sometimes All It Takes Is For Someone To Say That They're Scared For The Fear To Become Real. Mo Was Terrified, And Now Nick Was Too.

The Only Reason People Die, Is Because Everyone Does It. You All Just Go Along With It. It's Rubbish, Death. It's Stupid. I Don't Want Nothing To Do With It.

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.

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.

'doctor Who' Was The First Mythology That I Learned, Before Ever I Ran Into Greek Or Roman Or Egyptian Mythologies.

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.

I Like The Stars. It's The Illusion Of Permanence, I Think. I Mean, They're Always Flaring Up And Caving In And Going Out. But From Here, I Can Pretend...i Can Pretend That Things Last. I Can Pretend That Lives Last Longer Than Moments. Gods Come, And Gods Go. Mortals Flicker And Flash And Fade. Worlds Don't Last; And Stars And Galaxies Are Transient, Fleeting Things That Twinkle Like Fireflies And Vanish Into Cold And Dust. But I Can Pretend.

Just Go With It. It Won't Hurt.' I Stared At Him. Adults Only Ever Said That When It, Whatever It Happened To Be, Was Going To Hurt So Much.

My Wife, Amanda, Is Terribly Good At Warping Reality. She Is Like A Bowling Ball On A Rubber Sheet, And You Find Yourself Living In Her Universe, Doing Things That Are Completely Unexpected Or Unimaginable For You, But You Blink And You're Up On A Stage Singing, Or Wearing A Peculiar Wig, Or Writing A Book Filled With Feelings And Emotion, Or Doing Something Equally As Unlikely.

I Lay On The Bed And Lost Myself In Stories. I Liked That. Books Were Safer Than Other People Anyways.

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

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

There's A Glorious Sense Of Freedom In Comedy, Just Allowing Myself To Tell Jokes, Allowing Myself To Interrupt Myself And Tell Old African Folk Stories That I Made Up - Or Didn't - And Jamaican Stories.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Identity Can Be So Gelatinous Sometimes.

You Can't Just Boss Bacteria Around Like That," Said The Younger Mrs. Hempstock. "they Don't Like It." "stuff And Silliness," Said The Old Lady. "you Leave Wigglers Alone And They'll Be Carrying On Like Anything. Show Them Who's Boss And They Can't Do Enough For You. You've Tasted My Cheese.

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

And, Too Ignorant To Be Scared, Too Young To Be Awed, Tristan Thorn Traveled Beyond The Fields We Know.

Parameters Are The Things You Bounce Off To Create Art.

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.

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.

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

It Always Felt Like The Price Of Being A Writer Was That You Would - Even In The Most Terrible Moments, There Was A Little Phantom Version Of You Sitting On Your Shoulder With A Notebook Going, I Can Use This. Ok, Look At The Way That The Light Is Glinting Off The Broken Plastic On The Road Next To The Blood. You Can Use This. And It Was Always A Very Strange Feeling.

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

Being A Writer Of Fiction Isn't Like Being A Compulsive Liar, Honestly.

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?

Every Hour Wounds. The Last One Kills.

First Rule Of Magic: Don't Let Anyone Know Your Real Name. Names Have Power.

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

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.

Often The Adult Book Is Not For You, Not Yet, Or Will Only Be For You When You're Ready. But Sometimes You Will Read It Anyway, And You Will Take From It Whatever You Can. Then, Perhaps, You Will Come Back To It When You're Older, And You Will Find The Book Has Changed Because You Have Changed As Well, And The Book Is Wiser, Or More Foolish, Because You Are Wiser Or More Foolish Than You Were As A Child.

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.

I Don't Think It Would Be Fun To Write After Inhaling Art Fumes. (what Are Art Fumes?) No, I Just Make Stuff Up. It's Easier That Way.

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.

And Because Nobody's Done It Before, They Haven't Made Up Rules To Stop Anyone Doing That Again, Yet.

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

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

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

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

Bitter Experience

You Play Your Cards So Close To Your Chest," Said Shadow, "that I'm Not Even Sure They're Really Cards At All.

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

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

People Who Believe They'll Be Happy If They Go And Live Somewhere Else, Learn It Doesn't Work That Way. Wherever You Go, You Take Yourself With You.

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?

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.

If I Come Back, It Will Be A Place, But It Won't Be A Home Any Longer.

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

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

The End Of The Day

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

As For Thinking Time Versus Writing Time, Well, That's Up To You. But - And I Wish It Were Otherwise - Books Don't Get Written By Thinking About Them, They Get Written By Writing Them. And That's When You Make Discoveries About What You're Writing. That's When You Get The Happy Accidents.

The Past Is Always Knocking At The Door, Trying To Break Through Into Today.

When I Was A Kid, We Actually Lived In A House That Had Been Divided In Two At One Point, Which Meant That One Room In Our House Opened Up Onto A Brick Wall. And I Was Convinced All I Had To Do Was Just Open It The Right Way And It Wouldn't Be A Brick Wall. So I'd Sidle Over To The Door And I'd Pull It Open.

But Standing In That Hallway, It Was All Coming Back To Me. Memories Were Waiting At The Edges Of Things, Beckoning To Me.

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

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

When Things Get Tough

May Your Coming Year Be Filled With Magic And Dreams And Good Madness.

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

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.

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

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

Where Magic Is Concerned, There Is Always An Initial Decision, An Initial Willingness To Let It Enter Your Life. If That Is Not There Neither Is Magic.

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

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

Also, I've Already Won All The Awards.

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.

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?

The Sky Had Never Seemed So Sky; The World Had Never Seemed So World.

If You Were To Try And Pick Him Out Of A Group Of Boys, You’d Be Wrong. He’d Be The Other One. Over At The Side. The One Your Eye Slipped Over.

Everything That Is,casts A Shadow

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.

I Loved All Books That I Could Read, And I Never Knew If I Was Ready For It Until I Tried To Read It, So I Tried To Read Everything.

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

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.

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.

Have You Ever Been In Love? Horrible Isn't It? It Makes You So Vulnerable. It Opens Your Chest And It Opens Up Your Heart And It Means That Someone Can Get Inside You And Mess You Up.

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

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."

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Continuity Isn't Actually Something That I Ever Worry About. You Use It Where You Need To, And You Don't Use It Where You Don't Need To.

Also, In My Bedroom, Nobody Minded If I Kept The Hall Door Half-open, Allowing In Enough Light That I Was Not Scared Of The Dark, And, Just As Important, Allowing Me To Read Secretly, After My Bedtime, Using The Dim Hallway Light To Read By, If I Needed To. I Always Needed To.

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

I Was A Normal Child. Which Is To Say, I Was Selfish And I Was Not Entirely Convinced Of The Existence Of Things That Were Not Me, And I Was Certain, Rock-solid, Unshakeably Certain, That I Was The Most Important Thing In Creation. There Was Nothing That Was More Important To Me Than I Was.

It's Not Hard To Own Something. Or Everything. You Just Have To Know That It's Yours, And Then Be Willing To Let It Go.

It's Quiet. No Cars. No Birds. Nothing.' 'no Radio Waves,' Said The Doctor. 'not Even Radio Four.' 'you Can Hear Radio Waves?' 'of Course Not. Nobody Can Hear Radio Waves,' He Said Unconvincingly.

We'll Win, Of Course," He Said. "you Don't Want That," Said The Demon. "why Not, Pray?“ “listen," Said Crowley Desperately, "how Many Musicians Do You Think Your Side Have Got, Eh? First Grade, I Mean." Aziraphale Looked Taken Aback. "well, I Should Think-" He Began. "two," Said Crowley. "elgar And Liszt. That's All. We've Got The Rest. Beethoven, Brahms, All The Bachs, Mozart, The Lot. Can You Imagine Eternity With Elgar?

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.

When We Consider That Each Of Us Has Only One Life To Live, Isn’t It Rather Tragic To Find Men And Women, With Brains Capable Of Comprehending The Stars And The Planets, Talking About The Weather; Men And Women, With Hands Capable Of Creating Works Of Art, Using Those Hands Only For Routine Tasks; Men And Women, Capable Of Independent Thought, Using Their Minds As A Bowling-alley For Popular Ideas; Men And Women, Capable Of Greatness, Wallowing In Mediocrity; Men And Women, Capable Of Self-expression, Slowly Dying A Mental Death While They Babble The Confused Monotone Of The Mob?

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.

The Problems With Success, Frankly, Are Infinitely Preferable To The Problems Of Failure.

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.

One Of The Great Things About Humor Is, You Can Slip Things Past People With Humor, You Can Use It As A Sweetener. So You Can Actually Tell Them Things, Give Them Messages, Get Terribly, Terribly Serious And Terribly, Terribly Dark, And Because There Are Jokes In There, They'll Go Along With You, And They'll Travel A Lot Further Along With You Than They Would Otherwise.

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

The Great Thing About Batman And Superman, In Truth, Is That They Are Literally Transcendent. They Are Better Than Most Of The Stories They Are In.

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.

This Is A Book For Every Fiddler Who Has Realized Halfway Through Playing An Ancient Scottish Air That The Ramones "i Wanna Be Sedated" Is What Folk Music Is Really All About, And Gone Straight Into It.

People Pursue Things. As Soon As They Have Them They Run Away From Them.

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

Walk Any Path In Destiny's Garden, And You Will Be Forced To Choose, Not Once But Many Times.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Most Of What I Want To Try To Do Is Continue To Go Places With Fiction That I've Never Gone Before, And Tell Stories I've Never Told Before, And One Of The Problems You Rapidly Discover About Fans Is What Fans Want Is The Last Thing They Liked. They Want More Of That.

Lies And Half-truths Fall Like Snow, Covering The Things That I Remember, The Things I Saw. A Landscape, Unrecognizable After A Snowfall; That Is That She Has Made Of My Life.

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

Being Brave Doesn't Mean You Aren't Scared. Being Brave Means You Are Scared, Really Scared, Badly Scared, And You Do The Right Thing Anyway.

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

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

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.

We Wrapped Our Dreams In Words And Patterned The Words So That They Would Live Forever, Unforgettable.

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

All That I Did," She Said, "everything I Tried To Do. All For Nothing." Nothing Is Done Entirely For Nothing, Said The Fox Of Dreams. Nothing Is Wasted. You Are Older, And You Have Made Decisions, And You Are Not The Fox You Were Yesterday. Take What You Have Learned, And Move On.

Lucifer Protests He Was Never To Blame For Inducing Anyone To Sin, And That He’s Never Had An Interest In Owning Souls: 'they Die, And They Come Here – Having Transgressed Against What They Believed To Be Right – And Expect Us To Fulfill Their Desire For Pain And Retribution. I Don’t Make Them Come Here… I Need No Souls. And How Can Anyone Own A Soul? No, They Belong To Themselves. They Just Hate To Have To Face Up To It.

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.

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

But Libraries Are About Freedom. Freedom To Read, Freedom Of Ideas, Freedom Of Communication. They Are About Education (which Is Not A Process That Finishes The Day We Leave School Or University), About Entertainment, About Making Safe Spaces, And About Access To Information.

Joy And Sorrow Are Like Milk And Cookies. That's How Well They Go Together.

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

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.

Lives Are Snowflakes - Unique In Detail, Forming Patterns We Have Seen Before, But As Like One Another As Peas In A Pod (and Have You Ever Looked At Peas In A Pod? I Mean, Really Looked At Them? There's Not A Chance You'd Mistake One For Another, After A Minute's Close Inspection.)

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

Books Were Safer Than Other People Anyway.

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?

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.

The Only Water In The Forest Is The River.

There Are Little Pockets Of Old Time In London, Where Things And Places Stay The Same, Like Bubble In Amber.

I Started Out Writing Much More Science Fictiony Stuff And Writing About Science Fiction.

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.

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.

Give Me Boredom. At Least I Know Where I'm Going To Eat And Sleep Tonight.

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.

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

I'm Never, I Hope, Stupid Enough To Believe That Twitter Or Blogging Or Any Of This Stuff Is A Substitute For Actually Doing The Work Or Writing A Book.

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.

Of Course You Don't Believe In Fairies. You're Fifteen. You Think I Believed In Fairies At Fifteen? Took Me Until I Was At Least A Hundred And Forty. Hundred And Fifty, Maybe. Anyway, He Wasn't A Fairy. He Was A Librarian. All Right?

I Don't Just Randomly Kill People... I Kill People When It's Funny.

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

It Used To Be Thought That The Events That Changed The World Were Things Like Big Bombs, Maniac Politicians, Huge Earthquakes, Or Vast Population Movements, But It Has Now Been Realized That This Is A Very Old-fashioned View Held By People Totally Out Of Touch With Modern Thought. The Things That Really Change The World, According To Chaos Theory, Are The Tiny Things. A Butterfly Flaps Its Wings In The Amazonian Jungle, And Subsequently A Storm Ravages Half Of Europe.

I'm Bored," She Said. "learn How To Tap-dance," He Suggested, Without Turning Around.

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Warren G. Harding

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