Neil Gaiman

“She'd run her life according to the Prophecies and now there were no more Prophecies. She must be feeling like a train which had reached the end of the line but still had to keep going, somehow. From now on she'd be able to go through life with everything coming as a surprise, just like everyone else. What luck.”

“That's right," said Pepper. "Because," she added, "if we beat them, we'd have to be our own deadly enemies. It'd be me an' Adam against Brian an' Wensley," She sat back. "Everyone needs a Greasy Johnson," she said. "Yeah," said Adam. "That's what I thought. It's no good anyone winning. That's what I thought." He stared at Dog, or through Dog. "Seems simple enough to me," said Wensleydale, sitting back. "I don't see why it's taken thousands of years to sort out.”

“There doesn't have to be any of that business with one third of the seas turning to blood or anything," said Aziraphale happily. When it came, the voice sounded slightly annoyed. "Why not?" it said. Aziraphale felt an icy pit opening under his enthusiasm, and tried to pretend it wasn't happening. He plunged on: "Well, you can simply make sure that—" "We will win, Aziraphale." "Yes, but—" "The forces of darkness must be beaten. You seem to be under a misapprehension. The point is not to avoid the war, it is to win it. We have been waiting a long time, Aziraphale.”

“We'll win, of course," he said. "You don't want that," said the demon. "Why not, pray?““Listen," said Crowley desperately, "how many musicians do you think your side have got, eh? First grade, I mean." Aziraphale looked taken aback. "Well, I should think-" he began. "Two," said Crowley. "Elgar and Liszt. That's all. We've got the rest. Beethoven, Brahms, all the Bachs, Mozart, the lot. Can you imagine eternity with Elgar?”

“The lower you start, the more opportunities you have.”

“They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into the 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. Over the years Crowley had found it increasingly difficult to find anything demonic to do which showed up against the natural background of generalized nastiness.”

“For the record, I don't expect you to believe any of this. Not really. I'm a liar by trade, after all; albeit, I like to think, an honest liar.”

“Sometimes I think that the truth is a place. In my mind, it is like a city: there can be a hundred roads, a thousand paths, that will all take you, eventually, to the same place. It does not matter where you come from. If you walk towards truth, you will reach it, whatever path you take.”

“This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence.”

“Realmente no lo entiendes, ¿verdad? —repuso—. No quiero tener todo lo que deseo. Nadie lo quiere, no de verdad. ¿Dónde estaría la gracia si tuviese todo lo que quiero? Es eso y nada más, ¿y después qué?”

“I really don't know what "I love you" means.I think it means "Don't leave me here alone.”

“We are always living in the final days. What have you got? A hundred years or much, much less until the end of your world.”

“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.”

“Y por qué es necesario tener valor? —le preguntó el gato con tono de indiferencia.—Porque, cuando haces algo a pesar del miedo que sientes —respondió ella—, necesitas tener mucho valor.”

“Coraline nunca había comprendido qué motivo había llevado a alguien a pintar un cuenco con frutas.”

“Coraline se dedicó a pasear y a contemplar unas botas de agua que tenían forma de rana, pato y conejito.Después volvió.—¿Coraline? Ah, aquí estás. ¿Dónde diablos te habías metido?—Me habían secuestrado unos extraterrestres —respondió Coraline—. Venían del espacio exterior con pistolas que lanzaban rayos, pero yo los he engañado poniéndome una peluca y hablando con acento extranjero, y he escapado.”

“You will learn more from a glorious failure than ever you will from something that you never finished.”

“There was a hysteria in there, certainly, but there was also the exhaustion of someone who had managed, somehow, to believe several dozen impossible things in the last twenty-four hours, without ever getting a proper breakfast.”

“Any way, death is so final, isn't it?"Is it?" asked Richard."Sometimes," said the marquis de Carabas. And they went down.”

“I once made up a story as a wedding present for some friends. It was about a couple who were given a story as a wedding present. It was not a reassuring story. Having made up the story, I decided that they’d probably prefer a toaster, so I got them a toaster, and to this day have not written the story down.”

“If we do not fight to create a future there will be no future for any of us.”

“Time is fluid here', said the Demon.”

“Whatever it takes to finish things, finish. You will learn more from a glorious failure than you ever will from something you never finished.”

“Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother? I do. There are things not in your book. There are paths outside this garden.”

“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.”

“There are no whores in Scaithe’s Ebb, or none that consider themselves as such, although there have always been many women who, if pressed, would describe themselves as much-married, with one husband on this ship here every six months, and another husband on that ship, back in port for a month or so every nine months. The mathematics of the thing have always kept most folk satisfied; and if ever it disappoints and a man returns to his wife while one of her other husbands is still in occupancy, why, then there is a fight — and the grog shops to comfort the loser. The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man’s affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.”

“I think there should be more black characters, and more of all kinds of characters, in fiction. Almost all of the main characters in my novel Anansi Boys are black. And there are black characters in featured roles in all the other novels except Stardust and Coraline. (Something I was happy to see was not the case in Henry Selick’s film.)”

“It's a fine wake I'll be wanting, with the best if everything, and beautiful women shedding tears and their clothes in their distress, and brave men lamenting and telling fine tales of me in my great days.”

“The joy's gone out of me like the pee from a small boy in a swimming pool on a hot day.”

“She was witchy, yes, and in charge of a cauldron roiling with ideas and stories, but she always gave the impression that the stories, the ones she wrote and wrote so very well and so wisely, had simply happened, and that all she had done was to hold the pen. (On Diana Wynne Jones)”

“She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful.”

“I could be blindfolded and dropped into the deepest ocean and I would know where to find you. I could be buried a hundred miles underground and I would know where you are.”

“Walk any path in Destiny's garden, and you will be forced to choose, not once but many times.”

“A world in which there are monsters, and ghosts, and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels, and dreams and a world in which there is hope.”

“I tak dzień zmarnował na czekanie, co, jak wiedział, było grzechem: każdą chwilę należy przeżywać. Czekanie to grzech przeciw czasom, które dopiero nadejdą, jak również przeciw obecnym, zlekceważonym chwilom.”

“Nie - odparł pan Vandemar. - Brzdęk. - My cię zastraszamy. - Brzdęk. - Jeśli nie zrobisz tego, co każe pan Croup... - brzdęk - bardzo cię skrzywdzimy. - Brzdęk. - A potem... - brzdęk - zabijemy cię jeszcze bardziej.”

“Pan Croup uśmiechnął się szeroko, ukazując zęby, które wyglądały jak wypadek na cmentarzu.”

“Biggest case we've had here in five years was when Dan Schwartz got drunk and shot up his own trailer, then he went on the run, down Main Street, in his wheelchair, waving this darn shotgun, shouting that he would shoot anyone that got in his way, that no one would stop him from getting to the interstate. I think he was on his way to Washington to shoot the president. I still laugh whenever I think of Dan heading down the interstate in that wheelchair of his with the bumper sticker on the back. My Juvenile Delinquent Is Screwing Your Honor Student.”

“Do you think they're still there?''Where?''Greece. Egypt. The islands. Those places. Do you think if you walked where those people walked you'd see the gods?''Maybe. But I don't think people'd know that was what they'd seen.”

“I am the only one of us who brings in any money. the other two cannot make money fortune telling. this is because they only tell the truth, and the truth is not what people want to hear. it is a bad thing and it troubles people, so they do not come back.”

“As-tu déjà été amoureux? C'est horrible non? Ca rend si vulnérable. Ca t'ouvre la poitrine et le coeur en grand et du coup, n'importe qui peut venir te bousiller de l'intérieur. On se forge des défenses, on se fabrique une belle armure pour que rien ne puisse jamais nous atteindre, et voilà qu'un imbécile, pas bien différent des autres s'immisce dans notre imbécile de vie... On lui offre un morceau de soi alors que l'autre n'a rien demandé. Il a juste fait un truc débile un jour, genre t'embrasser ou te sourire, mais, depuis, ta vie ne t'appartient plus. L'amour te prend en otage. Il s'insinue en toi. Il te dévore de l'intérieur et te laisse tout seul à chialer dans le noir, au point qu'un simple phrase comme "je crois qu'on devrait rester amis" te fait l'effet d'un éclat de verre qu'on t'aurait planté dans le coeur. Ca fait mal. Pas juste dans ton imagination. Pas juste dans ta tête. C'est une douleur à fendre l'âme, qui s'incruste en toi et te déchire du dedans. Je hais l'amour.”

“But it was a dream, and in dreams, sometimes, you have no choices: either there are no decisions to be made, or they were made for you long before ever the dream began.”

“We don't have a clue what's really going down, we just kid ourselves that we're in control of our lives while a paper's thickness away things that would drive us mad if we thought about them for too long play with us, and move us around from room to room, and put us away at night when they're tired, or bored.”

“The sailors do not mind the arrangement, for they know that this way there will, at the least, be one person who, at the last, will notice when they do not come back from the sea, and will mourn their loss; and their wives content themselves with the certain knowledge that their husbands are also unfaithful, for there is no competing with the sea in a man's affections, since she is both mother and mistress, and she will wash his corpse also, in time to come, wash it to coral and ivory and pearls.”

“Listen, gods die when they are forgotten. People too. But the land's still here. The good places, and the bad. The land isn't going anywhere. And neither am I.”

“You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it.”

“It always rains on the unloved-wet dreams-a fishing expedition-she kisses wyverns (the disneyland analogy)-dinner etiquette and chocolate lovers-desire swears by the first circle-"things are changing"-what can possibly go wrong?”

“I'm a has-been. Who the fuck cares about me?"Shadows said softly, "You're a god".Wednesday looked at him sharply. [...] "So?""It's a good thing to be a god", said Shadow"Is it?”

“It doesn't matter. Like the newspapers used to say, if the truth isn't big enough, you print the legend. This country needs its legends. And even the legends don't believe it anymore.”

“Offer people a new creed with a costume and their hearts and minds will follow.”