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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.

-Neil Gaiman

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When Things Get Tough,

Neil Gaiman

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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.

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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.

Have You Thought About What It Means To Be A God?" Asked The Man. He Had A Beard And A Baseball Cap. "it Means You Give Up Your Mortal Existence To Become A Meme: Something That Lives Forever In People's Minds, Like The Tune Of A Nursery Rhyme. It Means That Everyone Gets To Re-create You In Their Own Minds. You Barely Have Your Own Identity Any More. Instead, You're A Thousand Aspects Of What People Need You To Be. And Everyone Wants Something Different From You. Nothing Is Fixed, Nothing Is Stable.

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Never Trust The Storyteller. Only Trust The Story.

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I Couldn't Get You To The Ocean, But There Was Nothing Stopping Me Bringing The Ocean To You.

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Richard Opened His Hand, And The Key Stared Up At Him From His Palm. "by My Crooked Teeth," Asked Richard, Remembering, "who Am I?

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.

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Stories Are Made Up By People Who Make Them Up. If They Work, They Get Retold. There's The Magic Of It.

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

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

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.

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.

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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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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Some People Have Great Ideas Maybe Once Or Twice In Their Life, And Then They Discover Electricity Or Fire Or Outer Space Or Something. I Mean, The Kind Of Brilliant Ideas That Change The Whole World. Some People Never Have Them At All... I Get Them Two Or Three Times A Week.

The Biggest Difference Between England And America Is That England Has History, While America Has Geography.

England And America

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

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

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

Sometimes An Old Idea Gets Relegated To The Back Of The Line In The Mad Delight Of A New Idea, One You've Never Had Before, And That You Write Fast In The Thrill Of The New. No Rules. Just Stories, And You Tell As Many Of Them As You Can.

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.

Where Does Contagion End And Art Begin?

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

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.

They Also Held That The Way To Salvation Was To Give Way To Lust And Temptation In All Things. And No Greater Percentage Of Them Turned Up Here Than Of Any Other Religion. Amusing, Isn't It?

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.

You're A Poem?' I Repeated. She Chewed Her Lower Lip. 'if You Want. I Am A Poem, Or I Am A Pattern, Or A Race Of People Whose Whose World Was Swallowed By The Sea.' 'isn't It Hard To Be Three Things At The Same Time?' 'what's Your Name?' 'enn.' 'so You Are Enn,' She Said. 'and You Are A Male. And You Are A Biped. Is It Hard To Be Three Things At The Same Time?

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

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

When Things Get Tough

[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.

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.

It Was A Perfectly Normal Gerbil. It Appeared To Be Living In An Exciting Construction Of Cylinders, Spheres And Treadmills, Such As The Spanish Inquisition Would Have Devised If They'd Had Access To A Plastics Molding Press.

Perfectly Normal

Hey, That's Life, Flick It Off If You Can't Take A Joke.

He Goes His Way. We Travel A Spiral. The Quickest Way Is Sometimes The Longest.

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

One Of Those Days

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.

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

When Things Get Tough... Make Good Art.

When Things Get Tough

Not Gay, Just Never Met The Right Woman.

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Building Things

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

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.

The End Of The Story Of Batman Is He's Dead. Because, In The End, The Batman Dies. What Else Am I Going To Do? Retire And Play Golf? It Doesn't Work That Way. It Can't. I Fight Until I Drop. And One Day, I Will Drop.

The Right Song Can Turn An Emperor Into A Laughingstock, Can Bring Down Dynasties.

Are We Human Because We Gaze At The Stars Or Do We Gaze At The Stars Because We Are Human?

We Save Our Lives In Such Unlikely Ways.

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

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.

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 Like 'pencil-necked Weasel'. It Has 'pencil' In It. Pencils Are Good Things. You Can Draw Or Write Things With Pencils. I Think It's What You Call Someone When You're Worried That Using A Long Word Like 'intellectual' May Have Too Many Syllables. It's Not Something That People Who Have Serious, Important Things To Say Call Other People.

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

All Your Tomorrows Start Here.

It's Only A World, After All, And They're Just Sand Grains In The Desert, Worlds.

The Really Important Thing To Be Was Yourself, Just As Hard As You Could.

Important Things

There's Nothing For Getting You Good Fast Like Having To Be Good Fast, If That Makes Any Sense.

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

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.

There Are A Number Of Paths That Lead To This Place. I Have Been Avoiding Them For Some Small Time, Now.

Life And Death Are Different Sides Of The Same Coin.

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.

Right," Said Fat Charlie Conversationally. "you Realize, Of Course, That This Means War." It Was The Traditional War Cry Of A Rabbit When Pushed Too Far.

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.

Books Were Safer Than Other People Anyway.

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.

Everybody Who Has Ever Read Sandman Knows Exactly What The Sandman Looks Like, Which Is More Than Anybody Who Has Ever Read The Catcher In The Rye Can Say About Holden Caufield.

The Comic Convention Itself Tends To Come Second To The Giant Announcements In Hall H And The Movies And The Tv. So I Think It's Always Good To Remind People That There Is A Wonderful Comic Convention Going On.

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.

Stories You Read When You're The Right Age Never Quite Leave You. You May Forget Who Wrote Them Or What The Story Was Called. Sometimes You'll Forget Precisely What Happened, But If A Story Touches You It Will Stay With You, Haunting The Places In Your Mind That You Rarely Ever Visit.

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.

We Writers – And Especially Writers For Children, But All Writers – Have An Obligation To Our Readers: It's The Obligation To Write True Things, Especially Important When We Are Creating Tales Of People Who Do Not Exist In Places That Never Were – To Understand That Truth Is Not In What Happens But What It Tells Us About Who We Are. Fiction Is The Lie That Tells The Truth, After All.

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

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.

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

Spiders' Webs Only Have To Be Large Enough To Catch Flies.

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.

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

Libraries Are The Thin Red Line Between Civilization And Barbarism.

Trust Dreams. Trust Your Heart, And Trust Your Story.

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Frederick Sanger

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