Quotessence
Home / Authors / Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllIfsPeopleWorldWritingThinkingSaidKnowsBookStoriesWayDreamSandmanWantChildrenMenSometimesCoralineWellsBelieveLooks

Famous Neil Gaiman Quotes

“I was a voracious reader and I could never understand why comics were of any less merit or importance than any other way of writing. I think the thing that keeps me with comics is there's still so much to be done. There's still this huge unplowed field, this huge unexplored wilderness, and as long as I can keep doing new things and coming up with new things, I will.”

ThinkingWayWritingLongStillsI CanDoneFieldsHugeReaderImportanceMeritWildernessNew ThingsUnexplored
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“Do the stuff that only you can do. The urge, starting out, is to copy. And that's not a bad thing. Most of us only find our own voices after we've sounded like a lot of other people. But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. The moment that you feel that, just possibly, you're walking down the street naked, exposing too much of your heart and your mind and what exists on the inside, showing too much of yourself. That's the moment you may be starting to get it right.”

PeopleFeelsWritingMindHeartMayPlayMomentsStoriesStuffSoundVoiceCan DoVisionToo MuchOne ThingStreetsWalkingDrawsStartingNakedUrgesCopiesBad ThingsExposingStarting Out
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“The secret to writing is just to write. Write every day. Never stop writing. Write on every surface you see; write on people on the street. When the cops come to arrest you, write on the cops. Write on the police car. Write on the judge. I'm in jail forever now, and the prison cell walls are completely covered with my writing, and I keep writing on the writing I wrote. That's my method.”

PeopleWritingSecretForeverStreetsCarJudgingWallPoliceMethodPrisonSurfaceCellsJailCoveredCopPrison CellsPolice Cars
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“If I'm writing a novel, I'll probably get up in the morning, do email, perhaps blog, deal with emergencies, and then be off novel-writing around 1.00pm and stop around 6.00pm. And I'll be writing in longhand, a safe distance from my computer. If I'm not writing a novel, there is no schedule, and scripts and introductions and whatnot can find themselves being written at any time and on anything.”

IfsWritingDealsMorningNovelWrittenSafeComputerDistanceScriptsGet UpSchedulesEmailEmergenciesIntroductionBlogsNovel Writing
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“"Only write what you know" is very good advice. I do my best to stick to it. I wrote about gods and dreams and America because I knew about them. And I wrote about what it's like to wander into Faerie because I knew about that. I wrote about living underneath London because I knew about that too. And I put people into the stories because I knew them: the ones with pumpkins for heads, and the serial killers with eyes for teeth, and the little chocolate people filled with raspberry cream and the rest of them.”

PeopleKnowsWritingLittlesStoriesDreamEyeAmericaAdviceFilledSticksVery GoodLondonTeethWanderChocolateKillersCreamGood AdviceFaerieSerialsSerial KillerPumpkinRaspberries
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“I'm more or less happily writing Chapter Six of The Graveyard Book. I say more or less as I'm at that place where I hope that the book knows what it's doing because right now I don't have a clue - I'm writing one scene after another like a man walking through a valley in thick fog, just able to see the path a little way ahead, but with no idea where it's actually going to lead him.”

KnowsMenWayWritingLittlesBookIdeasAblePathWalkingRight NowSceneSixNo IdeaValleysThickChaptersClueFogGraveyard
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“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.”

PeopleWritingPersonsImportantFilmMovingThreeReadingMagicInvolvedCreatingImportant ThingsDrawingComicGutters
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“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.”

WritingBookFeelingsRealityUniverseEmotionWifeStageSingingBallsFilledMy WifeUnexpectedFinding YourselfPeculiarSheetsUnlikelyFeelings And EmotionsWriting A BookBlinkRubberUnimaginableWigsBowlingAmanda
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“To journalists my move from comics to films to best-selling novels was resembling those little evolutionary maps too much, where you see the fish, and then it can walk, and then it's an ape and then it gets up on its hind legs and finally it is a man. I didn't like that. I didn't like the fact that there was something rather amphibious about me - at least in their heads - back when I was writing comics. So I like continuing to write comics, if only because it points out that I haven't just started to walk upright or left the water.”

MenWritingFilmMovingWaterNovelJournalist
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“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.”

ThinkingLifeInspirationalWritingYearsMayArtBookDreamNextForgetHealingWonderfulMagicFineGratitudeKissingDrawsMadnessFilledSurpriseNew YearNext YearHappy New Year Inspirational
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“And I thought, eight years ago, when I began carefully charting the progress of American Gods, nervously dipping my toes into the waters of blogging, would I have imagined a future in which, instead of recording the vicissitudes of bringing a book into the world, I would be writing about not-even-interestingly missing cups of cold camomile tea? And I thought, yup. Sounds about right. Happy Eighth birthday, blog.”

WorldWritingYearsBookWould BeSoundWaterProgressMissingColdYears AgoEightCupsTeaToesBlogsBloggingVicissitudesAmerican GodsCharting
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“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.”

IfsNeedsWritingWellsMayMatterEnoughStoriesWrittenHonestlyNot SureAssurance
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“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.”

PeopleThinkingWritingMayLongImportantSeriousIntellectualDrawsImportant ThingsGood ThingsWorriedPencilsSyllablesWeaselsLong Words
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image

“We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.”

KnowsNeedsWritingMayPersonsDifferentStoriesLyingGrowsKindnessGrowing UpReaderComfortLandscapeHaving HopeTrue ThingsSomewhere Out ThereGood LiesWhy We Write
Author:Neil Gaiman
Create image