Neil Gaiman
Lies and half-truths fall like snow, covering the things that I remember, the things I saw. A landscape, unrecognizable after a snowfall; that is that she has made of my life.Collection: Lying
EVERY ENDING IS A NEW BEGINNING. YOUR LUCKY NUMBER IS NONE. YOUR LUCKY COLOUR IS DEAD. Motto: LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON.Collection: Father
The ducks in St James's Park are so used to being fed bread by secret agents meeting clandestinely that they have developed their own Pavlovian reaction. Put a St James's Park duck in a laboratory cage and show it a picture of two men -- one usually wearing a coat with a fur collar, the other something sombre with a scarf -- and it'll look up expectantly.Collection: Men
Many phenomena - wars, plagues, sudden audits - have been advanced as evidence for the hidden hand of Satan in the affairs of Man, but whenever students of demonology get together the M25 London orbital motorway is generally agreed to be among the top contenders for exhibit A.Collection: War
He..." Richard began. "The marquis. Well, you know, to be honest, he seems a little bit dodgy to me." Door stopped. The steps dead-ended in a rough brick wall. "Mm," she agreed. "He's a little bit dodgy in the same way that rats are a little bit covered in fur.Collection: Wall
I have no plans to love you," said Coraline. "No matter what. You can't make me love you.Collection: Love You
Have you ever spent days and days and days making up flavors of ice cream that no one's ever eaten before? Like chicken and telepone ice cream? Green mouse ice cream was the worst. I didn't like that at all.Collection: Ice Cream
And then he'd tried to become an official Atheist and hadn't got the rock-hard self-satisfied strength of belief even for that.Collection: Atheist
It's not sipping wine. It's a mourning wine. You drain it. Like this.Collection: Wine
This is a roadside attraction,' said Wednesday. 'One of the finest. Which means it is a place of power.Collection: Mean
Names come and names go.Collection: Names
I don't think it would be fun to write after inhaling art fumes. (What are art fumes?) No, I just make stuff up. It's easier that way.Collection: Art
You don't have to test everything to destruction just to see if you made it right.Collection: Tests
When most people said "I'm psychic, you see," they meant "I have an overactive but unoriginal imagination/wear black nail varnish/talk to my budgie;" when Anathema said it, it sounded as though she was admitting to a hereditary disease which she'd much prefer not to have.Collection: Psychics
All around me darkness gathers, Fading is the sun that shone, We must speak of other matters, You can be me when I'm gone Flowers gathered in the morning, Afternoon they blossom on, Still are withered in the evening, You can be me when I'm gone.Collection: Morning
Jesus. Low-Key Lyesmith," said Shadow. and then he heard what he was saying and he understood. "Loki," he said. "Loki Lie-smith." "You're slow," said Loki, "but you get there in the end." And his lips twisted into a scarred smile and the embers danced in the shadows of his eyes.Collection: Jesus
They were having an argument as old and comfortable as an armchair, the kind of argument that no one ever really wins or loses but which can go on forever, if both parties are willing.Collection: Party
You know I love you,' said the other mother flatly. 'You have a very funny way of showing it,' said Coraline.Collection: Mother
This is the only country in the world, that worries about what it is. The rest of them know what they are. No one ever needs to go searching for the heart of Norway. Or looks for the soul of Mozambique. They know what they are.Collection: Country
The cat looked as if it were about to say something sarcastic. Then it flicked its whiskers and said, "Challenge her. There's no guarantee she'll play fair, but her kind of thing loves games and challenges.Collection: Sarcastic
Chicago happened slowly, like a migraine.Collection: Chicago
I have heard the languages of apocalypse, and now I shall embrace the silence.Collection: Silence
He had gone beyond the world of metaphor and simile into the place of things that are, and it was changing him.Collection: Gone
Fictions are merely frozen dreams, linked images with some semblance of structure. They are not to be trusted, no more than the people who create them.Collection: Dream
When you reach the little house, the place your journey started, you will recognize it, although it will seem much smaller than you remember. Walk up the path, and through the garden gate you never saw before but once. And then go home. Or make a home. And rest.Collection: Home
There was Virginia Boote, the food and restaurant critic, who had once been a great beauty but was now a grand and magnificent ruin, and who delighted in her ruination.Collection: Virginia
I am an academic," said Professor Mandalay, "and thus have no finely developed senses that would be comprehensible to anyone who has not ever needed to grade papers without actually reading the blessed things.Collection: Blessed
What do stars do? They shine.Collection: Stars
I will be a wise and tolerant monarch, dispencing justice fairly, and only setting nightmares to rip out the winds of the evil and the wicked. Or just anybody that I don't like.Collection: Wise
I am frightened of nothing." "Nothing?" "Nothing." "Are you extremely frightened of nothing?" "Absolutely terrified of it." "I have nothing in my pockets. Would you like to see it?" "No, I most definitely would not.Collection: Pockets
I had to persuade a dog to swallow a pill. I twittered for advice and I got suggestion after suggestion. Most of them didn't work. 'Put the pill in the sausage.' No - that doesn't work. 'Cheese.' No. Then someone said: 'You wrap it in butter and it will slide down.' I tried it and it worked! And I'd learnt how to give a pill to a dog through the magic of Twitter.Collection: Dog
Richard wondered how the marquis managed to make being pushed around in a wheelchair look like a romantic and swashbuckling thing to do.Collection: Looks
Here you go, she said. I don't need it anymore. I'm very grateful. I think it may have saved my life, saved some other people's death.Collection: Grateful
The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one - after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape?Collection: Running
It won't hurt, said her other father. Coraline knew that when grown-ups told you something wouldn't hurt it almost always did. She shook her head.Collection: Hurt
The cat wrinkled its nose and managed to look unimpressed. "Calling cats," it confided, "tends to be a rather overrated activity. Might as well call a whirlwind.Collection: Cat
Why does she want me?" Coraline asked the cat. "Why does she want me to stay here with her?" "She wants something to love, I think," said the cat. "Something that isn't her. She might want something to eat as well. It's hard to tell with creatures like that.Collection: Cat
On the whole, stories don't write themselves.Collection: Writing
There were people you could hug, and then there was Silas.Collection: People
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.Collection: Phones
Hey, that's life, flick it off if you can't take a joke.Collection: Hey
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.Collection: Kings
Recounting the strange is like telling one's dreams: one can communicate the events of a dream, but not the emotional content, the way that a dream can colour one's entire day.Collection: Dream
I thought about moving south, about continuing to run, continuing to pretend I was alive. But it was, I knew now, much too late for that. There are doors, after all, between the living and the dead, and they swing in both directions.Collection: Running
You know how is it when you love someone? And the hard part, the bad part, the Jerry Springer Show part is that you never stop loving someone. There's always a piece of them in your heart.Collection: Heart
Richard began to understand darkness: darkness as something solid and real, so much more than a simple absence of light. He felt it touch his skin, questing, moving, exploring: gliding through his mind. It slipped into his lungs, behind his eyes, into his mouth.Collection: Real
There's a but, isn't there?" said Coraline. "I can feel it. Like a rain cloud.Collection: Rain
I think I’ll dismember the world and then I’ll dance in the wreckage.Collection: Thinking
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.Collection: Men