Quotessence
Home / Authors / Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleWorldWritingThinkingSaidKnowsBookStoriesWayDreamSandmanWantChildrenMenSometimesCoralineWellsBelieveLooks

Famous Neil Gaiman Quotes

“In reality the world is made of thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and discovering each other in the same unlikely teashop in Vancouver. There is an unavoidability to this process. It's not even coincidence. It's just the way the world works, with no regard for individuals or propriety.”

PeopleWorldWayTryingMadeRealityIndividualProcessFiveGroupsHundredRegardDiscoveringCoincidenceUnlikelyProprietyVancouver
Book:Anansi Boys
Create image

“I suppose I could claim that I had suspected that the world was a cheap and shoddy sham, a bad cover for something deeper and weirder and infinitely more strange, and that, in some way, I already know the truth. But I think that's just how the world has always been. And even now I know the truth, the world still seems cheap and shoddy. Different world, different shoddy, but that's how it feels.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldWayFeelsStillsDifferentSeemsStrangeClaimsDeeperDifferent WorldsI Know The Truth
Book:Selections from Fragile Things, Volume Five: 7 Short Fictions and Wonders
Create image

“We were never lovers, and we never will be, now. I do not regret that, however. I regret the conversations we never had, the time we did not spend together. I regret that I never told him that he made me happy, when I was in his company. The world was the better for his being in it. These things alone do I now regret: things left unsaid. And he is gone, and I am old.”

WorldMadeTogetherLeftCompanyGoneRegretLoversConversationI RegretUnsaid
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“She had forgotten them all; forgotten Richard down in the mud, and the marquis and his foolish crossbow, and the world. She was delighted and transported, in a perfect place, the world she lived for. Her world contained two things: Hunter, and the Beast. The Beast knew that too. It was the perfect match, the hunter and the hunted. And who was who, and which was which, only time would reveal; time and the dance.”

WorldTwoPerfectForgottenFoolishBeastTwo ThingsHuntersMudOnly TimeDelightedHuntedPerfect MatchCrossbows
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”

PeopleWorldMeanMatterWholeSecretWonderfulStupidBoringWhole WorldJust OneDullMagnificentGraduationUnimaginableSandmanAmazing World
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“A typical National World Weekly would tell the world how Jesus' face was seen on a Big Mac bun bought by someone from Des Moines, with an artist's impression of the bun; how Elvis Presley was recently sighted working in a Burger Lord in Des Moines; how listening to Elvis records cured a Des Moines housewife's cancer; how the spate of werewolves infesting the Midwest are the offspring of noble pioneer women raped by Bigfoot; and that Elvis was taken by Space Aliens in 1976 because he was too good for this world. Remarkably, one of these stories is indeed true.”

WorldStoriesBigsFacesArtistJesusSpaceLordTakenRecordsThis WorldListeningCancerNobleImpressionAliensTypicalPioneersWerewolfOffspringHousewifeMacsBurgersMidwestBunsBigfootBig MacDes MoinesSpace Aliens
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“Nothing [the demon] could think up was half as bad as the stuff [people] thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into their design somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.”

PeopleThinkingWorldWayLittlesEnergyStuffBornHalfTalentDesignThousandBuiltDemonDevotedGood Omens
Book:Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Create image

“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.”

WorldWantNeedsWritingChildrenImportantBookStoriesKidsFormReadingSoundFictionGoneWiseWindFindingsAnd LoveImportant ThingsBraveLove StoryBe BraveLove Of ReadingChildren Book
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“He stared down at the golden curls of the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. "You know," he concluded, after a while, "I think he actually looks like an Adam.”

ThinkingKnowsWorldLooksLyingFatherLordDarknessThis WorldKingsAngelGoldenSatanBeastDragonsAdamPitsAdversariesCurlsDestroyersSpawn
Book:Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Create image

“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.”

PeopleIfsWorldNeedsTwoTodayThreeEasyPleasureLike YouFineForgivingTolerateEasy To GetLateness
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“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.”

PeopleWorldBigsUsedViewsHalfModernEventsMovementChangedTheoryHugePoliticianEuropeWingsChaosPopulationStormTinyUsed To BeChanging The WorldBombsButterflyOld FashionedJungleEarthquakesManiacsChaos TheoryTiny Things
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“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.”

WorldLittlesMadeWould BeMistakePathMysteryDangerReturnBiggerDancingSmileLipsHillsBroadsGreyOld FriendsGraveyardNew FriendsMany PathsStallions
Book:The Graveyard Book
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingWorldSaidStillsEndsEnoughBigsEasyWalksWalkingCatAround The WorldComing BackSpidersWalking AwaySmall WorldCoralineSpider Web
Book:Coraline
Create image

“In a world where people die every day, I think the important thing to remember is that for each moment of sorrow we get when people leave this world there's a corresponding moment of joy when a new baby comes into this world. That first wail is-well, it's magic, isn't it? Perhaps it's a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies. That's how well they go together. I think we should all take a moment to meditate on that.”

PeopleThinkingWorldShouldFirstsWellsImportantHardMomentsTogetherRememberJoyDiesMagicThis WorldBabySorrowImportant ThingsMilkCookiesHard ThingsCorrespondingJoys And SorrowsNew Baby
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“Go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.”

WorldInspirationalInterestingMistakeBreakFantasticNovelistsGloriousChanging The WorldMaking MistakesGraduatesGraduationCreative PersonCommencementGraduate SchoolCollege StudentsCreative LifeFunny GraduationIdeas And CreativityGraduate StudentsCollege GraduatesHigh School GraduationInspirational GraduationFunny CommencementInspirational High School GraduationGraduation DayBreaking RulesGraduating High SchoolHigh School StudentsCollege GraduationCommencement SpeechGraduation SpeechSchool GraduationGraduation CommencementGood High School GraduationGraduating High School SeniorsHigh School Graduation SpeechInspiring GraduationBest StudentsHigh School CommencementHigh School Graduation CongratulationsInspire StudentsGoing To High School
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image