Neil Gaiman Quotes

445 Sourced Quotes

Doctor Who has never pretended to be hard science fiction … At best Doctor Who is a fairytale, with fairytale logic about this wonderful man in this big blue box who at the beginning of every story lands somewhere where there is a problem.

Neil Gaiman
The boy had the towering arrogance only seen in the greatest of artists and all nine-year-old boys.

Neil Gaiman
If they think you're a hero, they're wrong. After you die, you don't get to be Beowulf or Perseus or Rama any more. Whole different set of rules. Chess, not checkers. Go, not chess. You understand?

Neil Gaiman
It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes. But the half-wit remains a half-wit, and the emperor remains an emperor.

Neil Gaiman
You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.

Neil Gaiman
There are people who think that things that happen in fiction do not really happen. These people are wrong.

Neil Gaiman
"What's your name," Coraline asked the cat. "Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?"

Neil Gaiman
There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.

Neil Gaiman
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

Neil Gaiman
Why do I have this imagination? It's the only one I've got!

Neil Gaiman
Nothing's changed. You'll go home. You'll be bored. You'll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You're too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don't even get your name right.

Neil Gaiman
The ties of blood," said Spider, "are stronger than water." Water's not strong," objected Fat Charlie.

Neil Gaiman
Writing is flying in dreams. When you remember. When you can. When it works. It's that easy.

Neil Gaiman
So," he asked. "How's death?" "Hard," she said. "It just keeps going.

Neil Gaiman
All we have to believe with is our senses, the tools we use to perceive the world: our sight, our touch, our memory. If they lie to us, then nothing can be trusted. And even if we do not believe, then still we cannot travel in any other way than the road our senses show us; and we must walk that road to the end.

Neil Gaiman
The names are the first things to go, after the breath has gone, and the beating of the heart. We keep our memories longer than our names.

Neil Gaiman
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.

Neil Gaiman
How old are you?" asked Door. Richard was pleased she had asked; he would never have dared. "As old as my tongue," said Hunter, primly, "and a little older than my teeth.

Neil Gaiman
He entertained these thoughts awkwardly, as a man entertains unexpected guests. Then, as he reached his objective, he pushed these thoughts away, as a man apologizes to his guests, and leaves them, muttering something about a prior engagement.

Neil Gaiman
People take on the shapes of the songs and the stories that surround them, especially if they don't have their own song.

Neil Gaiman
Nobody gets through life without losing a few things on the way.

Neil Gaiman
She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.

Neil Gaiman
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.

Neil Gaiman
A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It's a community space. It's a place of safety, a haven from the world.

Neil Gaiman
Crowley had been extremely impressed with the warranties offered by the computer industry, and had in fact sent a bundle Below to the department that drew up the Immortal Soul agreements, with a yellow memo form attached just saying: "Learn, guys.

Neil Gaiman
The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties.

Neil Gaiman
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.

Neil Gaiman
We wrote the first draft in about nine weeks. Nine weeks of gloriously long phone calls, in which we would read each other what we'd written, and try to make the other one laugh. We'd plot, delightedly, and then hurry off the phone, determined to get to the next good bit before the other one could. We'd rewrite each other, footnote each other's pages, sometimes even footnote each other's footnotes.

Neil Gaiman
What need, Dunstan wondered, could someone have of the storm-filled eggshells?

Neil Gaiman
Whatever happened to me in my life, happened to me as a writer of plays. I'd fall in love, or fall in lust. And at the height of my passion, I would think, "So this is how it feels," and I would tie it up in pretty words. I watched my life as if it were happening to someone else. My son died. And I was hurt, but I watched my hurt, and even relished it, a little, for now I could write a real death, a true loss. My heart was broken by my dark lady, and I wept, in my room, alone; but while I wept, somewhere inside I smiled. For I knew I could take my broken heart and place it on the stage of The Globe, and make the pit cry tears of their own.

Neil Gaiman