Neil Gaiman
She smiled again. "Do you like cat?" she said. "Yes," said Richard. "I quite like cats." Anaesthesia looked relieved. "Thigh?" she asked, "or breast?Collection: Cat
For a moment he thought she was about to hit him, which would have been bad, or even start crying, which would have been much, much worse.Collection: Cry
I'm going to go home. Everything is going to be normal again. Boring again. Wonderful again.Collection: Home
Never mind. There. For good or bad. It's done.Collection: Mind
Nearly' only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.Collection: Success
Death’s a funny thing. I used to think it was a big, sudden thing, like a huge owl that would swoop down out of the night and carry you off. I don’t anymore. I think it’s a slow thing. Like a thief who comes to your house day after day, taking a little thing here and a little thing there, and one day you walk round your house and there’s nothing there to keep you, nothing to make you want to stay. And then you lie down and shut up forever. Lots of little deaths until the last big one.Collection: Lying
The TV's the altar. I'm what people are sacrificing to.' 'What do they sacrifice?' asked Shadow. 'Their time, mostly,' said Lucy. 'Sometimes each other.Collection: Sacrifice
I miss you', he admitted. 'I'm here', she said. 'That's when I miss you most. When you're here. When you aren't here, when you're just a ghost of the past or a dream from another life, it's easier then.Collection: Dream
He was having more fun than a barrelful of monkeys.* *Several years earlier Spider had actually been tremendously disappointed by a barrelful of monkeys. It had done nothing he had considered particularly entertaining, apart from emit interesting noises, and eventually, once the noises had stopped and the monkeys were no longer doing anything at all—except possibly on an organic level—had needed to be disposed of in the dead of night.Collection: Fun
There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.Collection: Hands
I'm a stranger," pointed out Bod. "You're not," she said, definitely. "You're a little boy." And then she said, "And you're my friend. So you can't be a stranger.Collection: Boys
Bod was thrilled. He imagined a future in which he could read everything, in which all stories could be opened and discovered.Collection: Stories
I was a stranger and you took me in. -Joji G. Shoji, d. 1921Collection: Stranger
Not gay, just never met the right woman.Collection: Gay
And he waited. It was only for a few seconds, but it felt like a small forever.Collection: Forever
Once, I was a poet, and, like all poets, I spent too long in the Kingdom of Dreams.Collection: Dream
Mr. Vandemar showed them his teeth, demonstrating his sunny and delightful disposition. It was unquestionably the most horrible thing Richard had ever seen.Collection: Teeth
Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you can betray them with your tongue. (from "Instructions")Collection: Heart
For tea she went down to see Misses Spink and Forcible. She had three digestive biscuits, a glass of limeade, and a cup of weak tea. The limeade was very interesting. It didn't taste anything like limes. It tasted bright green and vaguely chemical. Coraline liked it enormously. She wished they had it at home. "How are your dear mother and father?" asked Miss Spink. "Missing," said Coraline. "I haven't seen either of them since yesterday. I'm on my own. I think I've probably become a single child family.Collection: Mother
A novel seemed the easiest way to get what I had had in my head into the inside of other people's heads. Books are good that way.Collection: Book
Human beings do not like being pushed about by gods. They may seem to, on the surface, but somewhere on the inside, underneath it all, they sense it, and they resent it.Collection: May
You'll think this is a bit silly, but I'm a bit--well, I have a thing about birds." "What, a phobia?" "Sort of." "Well, that's the common term for an irrational fear of birds." "What do they call a rational fear of birds, then?Collection: Silly
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.Collection: Thinking
Adventures are all very well in their place, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.Collection: Pain
Have been unavoidably detained by the world. Expect us when you see us.Collection: World
It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers.Collection: Wall
If you were to try and pick him out of a group of boys, you’d be wrong. He’d be the other one. Over at the side. The one your eye slipped over.Collection: Eye
An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards.Collection: Fall
I knowed a man in Paphlagonia who'd swallow a live snake every morning, when he got up. He used to say, he was certain of one thing, that nothing worse would happen to him all day. 'Course they made him eat a bowlful of hairy centipedes before they hung him, so maybe that claim was a bit presumptive.Collection: Morning
Tristan and Yvaine were happy together. Not forever-after, for Time, the thief, eventually takes all things into his dusty storehouse, but they were happy, as these things go, for a long whileCollection: Long
Nice' in a bodyguard is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters.Collection: Nice
Coraline shivered. She preferred her other mother to have a location: if she were nowhere, then she could be anywhere. And, after all, it is always easier to be afraid of something you cannot see.Collection: Mother
Where does contagion end and art begin?Collection: Art
25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying 'Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?' 26 And the Angel said, 'I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down some where, forget my own head next.' 27 And the Lord did not ask him again.Collection: Angel
All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them.Collection: Novelists
It begins, as most things begin, with a song.Collection: Song
Richard did not believe in angels, he never had. He was damned if he was going to start now. Still, it was much easier not to believe in something when it was not actually looking directly at you and saying your name.Collection: Believe
Name the different kinds of people,’ said Miss Lupescu. ‘Now.’ Bod thought for a moment. ‘The living,’ he said. ‘Er. The dead.’ He stopped. Then, ‘... Cats?’ he offered, uncertainly.Collection: Cat
I think I've got Fear down, but how do I take it all the way up to Terror?Collection: Thinking
If you want to call it that. But it is a very specific sort of magic. There's a magic you take from death. Something leaves the world, something else comes into it.Collection: Magic
Because there are mysteries. Because there are things that people are forbidden to speak about. Because there are things they do not remember.Collection: People
Soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra.Collection: Beautiful
You have to believe. Otherwise, it will never happen.Collection: Inspirational
It always felt like the price of being a writer was that you would - even in the most terrible moments, there was a little phantom version of you sitting on your shoulder with a notebook going, I can use this. OK, look at the way that the light is glinting off the broken plastic on the road next to the blood. You can use this. And it was always a very strange feeling.Collection: Notebook
It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best.Collection: Work Out
Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.Collection: Freedom Of Speech
She was the storm, she was the lightning, she was the adult world with all its power and all its secrets and all its foolish casual cruelty.Collection: Secret
I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.Collection: Life
What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?' 'Cats don't have names,' it said. 'No?' said Coraline. 'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.Collection: Cat