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f5ff219
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Everything he had ever done that had been better left undone. Every lie he had told -- told to himself, or told to others. Every little hurt, and all the great hurts. Each one was pulled out of him, detail by detail, inch by inch. The demon stripped away the cover of forgetfulness, stripped everything down to truth, and it hurt more than anything.
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truth
hurt
lie
forgetfulness
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Neil Gaiman |
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e663546
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Nobody actually looks like what they really are on the inside.
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Neil Gaiman |
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bf51790
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And weren't, when you got right down to it, particularly evil. Human beings mostly aren't. They just get carried away by new ideas, like dressing up in jackboots and shooting people, or dressing up in white sheets and lynching people, or dressing up in tie-dye jeans and and playing guitar at people. Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow
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Neil Gaiman |
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a34e91c
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There are new gods growing in America, clinging to growing knots of belief: gods of credit card and freeway, of Internet and telephone, of radio and hospital and television, gods of plastic and of beeper and of neon. Proud gods, fat and foolish creatures, puffed up with their own newness and importance. "They are aware of us, they fear us, and they hate us," said Odin. "You are fooling yourselves if you believe otherwise."
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Neil Gaiman |
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c2cec0e
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Each of the dancers took a partner, the living with the dead, each to each. Bod reached out his hand and found himself touching fingers with, and gazing into the grey eyes of, the lady in the cobweb dress. She smiled at him. "Hello, Bod," she said. "Hello," he said, as he danced with her. "I don't know your name." "Names aren't really important," she said. "I love your horse. He's so big! I never knew horses could be that big." "He is gentl..
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young-adult
fantasy
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Neil Gaiman |
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1ad7c80
|
There were people you could hug, and then there was Silas.
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Neil Gaiman |
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45a10a4
|
But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?" "Easy," said the cat. "Think of somebody walking around the world. You start out walking away from something and end up coming back to it." "Small world," said Coraline. "It's big enough for her," said the cat. "spiders' webs only have to be large enough to catch flies." Coraline shivered."
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Neil Gaiman |
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7871986
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There is a madness, yes, this is true. Few mortals possess it, the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild wood of madness...
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the-sandman
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Neil Gaiman |
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75e7ca1
|
Fair enough," said Thor. "What's the price?" "Freya's hand in marriage." "He just wants her hand?" asked Thor hopefully. She had two hands, after all, and might be persuaded to give up one of them without too much of an argument. Tyr had, after all. "All of her," said Loki. "He wants to marry her." "Oh," said Thor. "She won't like that." --
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Neil Gaiman |
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2655319
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If Hell is other people... then Purgatory is airports.
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Neil Gaiman |
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dd6e30b
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It's perfectly simple," said Wednesday. "In other countries, over the years, people recognized the places of power. Sometimes it would be a natural formation, sometimes it would just be a place that was, somehow, special. They knew that something important was happening there, that there was some focusing point, some channel, some window to the Immanent. And so they would build temples or cathedrals, or erect stone circles, or...well, you g..
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Neil Gaiman |
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23a8dd1
|
I saw her chewing gum, when I was thirteen, and I fell for her like a suicide from a bridge.
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Neil Gaiman |
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6b27728
|
Rubbish!" screamed a fat, elderly woman, in Richard's ear, as he passed her malodorous stall. "Junk!" She continued. "Garbage! Trash! Offal! Debris! Come and get it! Nothing whole or undamaged! Crap, tripe, and useless piles of shit. You know you want it."
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trash
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Neil Gaiman |
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7244d00
|
I my life as if it were happening to someone else. My son died. And I was hurt, but I my hurt, and even it, a little, for now I could write a death, a loss. My heart was broken by my dark lady, and I wept, in my room, alone; but while I wept, somewhere inside I smiled.
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writing
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Neil Gaiman |
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5e29613
|
I think...that I would rather recollect a life mis-spent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt.
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Neil Gaiman |
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5dc3e07
|
I want to go home. Then he mentally underlined the last sentence three times, rewrote it in huge letters in red ink, and circled it before putting a number of exclamation marks next to it in his mental margin.
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Neil Gaiman |
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c580277
|
Still. Four words. And I didn't realize it until a couple of days ago, when someone wrote in to my blog: Dear Neil, If you could choose a quote - either by you or another author - to be inscribed on the wall of a public library children's area, what would it be? Thanks! Lynn I pondered a bit. I'd said a lot about books and kids' reading over the years, and other people had said things pithier and wiser than I ever could. And then it hit me,..
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books
book-lover
book
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Neil Gaiman |
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2e4c21a
|
You know that I love you." And despite herself, Coraline nodded. It was true. The other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew knew that the other mother loved her as a possession, nothing more, a tolerated pet whose behavior was no longer amusing."
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Neil Gaiman |
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2832ec0
|
The right song can turn an emperor into a laughingstock, can bring down dynasties.
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Neil Gaiman |
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10d5351
|
I think I've got Fear down, but how do I take it all the way up to Terror?
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Neil Gaiman |
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493b24b
|
It's only a world, after all, and they're just sand grains in the desert, worlds.
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Neil Gaiman |
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d4de479
|
I already killed you once today, what does it take to teach some people?
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Neil Gaiman |
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0ccb3db
|
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.
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fear
prison
relief
|
Neil Gaiman |
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03ce116
|
Now all we have to worry about is all the other books, and, of course, life, which is huge and complicated and will not warn you before it hurts you.
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Neil Gaiman |
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0e71e84
|
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.
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Neil Gaiman |
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0e77730
|
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."
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Neil Gaiman |
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5157c96
|
You must never imagine, that just because something is funny, it is not also dangerous.
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Neil Gaiman |
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4fe1a21
|
What we read as adults should be read, I think, with no warnings or alerts beyond, perhaps: enter at your own risk. We need to find out what fiction is, what it means, to us, an experience that is going to be unlike anyone else's experience of the story.
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Neil Gaiman |
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30b3349
|
You're alive, that means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you change the world, the world will change.
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Neil Gaiman |
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9d3b8b7
|
I wonder, Are fictions safe places? And then I ask myself, Should they be safe places?
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Neil Gaiman |
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eb1d979
|
Rebirth always follows death.
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death
rebirth
|
Neil Gaiman |
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8df12d8
|
But the truth is, it's not the idea, it's never the idea, it's always what you do with it.
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writing
|
Neil Gaiman |
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8d0eb64
|
Bod was thrilled. He imagined a future in which he could read everything, in which all stories could be opened and discovered.
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Neil Gaiman |
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68a609a
|
You know what happens when you dream of falling? Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
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Neil Gaiman |
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c056522
|
Nobody's American," said Wednesday. "Not originally. That's my point."
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Neil Gaiman |
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695a185
|
The stuff you bring back from dreams is free.
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graphic-novels
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Neil Gaiman |
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d23fae3
|
What's your name, lad?" "Newton. Newton Pulsifer." "LUCIFER? What's that you say? Are ye of the Spawn of Darkness, a tempting beguiling creature from the pit, wanton limbs steaming from the fleshpots of Hades, in tortured and lubricious thrall to your Stygian and hellish masters?" "That's Pulsifer," explained Newton. "With a P. I don't know about the other stuff, but we come from Surrey." The voice on the phone sounded vaguely disappointed...
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Neil Gaiman |
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a4afeb6
|
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."
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Neil Gaiman |
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1425300
|
being brave didn't mean you weren't scared. Being brave meant you were scared, really scared, badly scared, and you did the right thing anyway.
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Neil Gaiman |
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0422ec7
|
And there never was an apple, in Adam's opinion, that wasn't worth the trouble you got into for eating it.
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|
Neil Gaiman |
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134ec78
|
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 is how it feels,' and I would tie it up in pretty words. I my life as if it were happening to someone else. My son died. And I was hurt, but I my hurt, and even it, a little, for now I could write a death, a loss. My heart was broken by my dark lady, and I wept, in my roo..
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writing
writers
|
Neil Gaiman |
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b54cc2e
|
Words can be worrisome, poeple complex, motives and manners unclear, grant her the wisdom to choose her path right, free from unkindness and fear.
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life
girls
|
Neil Gaiman |
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22c255d
|
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..
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Neil Gaiman |
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63ba893
|
That was the thing about Loki. You resented him even when you were at your most grateful, and you were grateful to him even when you hated him the most.
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Neil Gaiman |