Neil Gaiman, The Ocean At The End Of The Lane Quotes

I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible.

A story only matters, I suspect, to the extent that the people in the story change.

But there was a kitten on my pillow, and it was purring in my face and vibrating gently with every purr, and, very soon, I slept.

Books were safer than other people anyway.

Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.

I make art, sometimes I make true art, and sometimes it fills the empty places in my life. Some of them. Not all.

They were not my friends, after all. They were just the people I went to school with.

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled.

In my dream, it was the tongue of what is, and anything spoken in it becomes real, because nothing said in that language can be a lie. It is the most basic building brick of everything.

Small children believe themselves to be gods, or some of them do, and they can only be satisfied when the rest of the world goes along with their way of seeing things.

I remembered that, and, remembering that, I remembered everything.

Different people remember things differently, and you'll not get any two people to remember anything the same, whether they were there or not.

Words save our lives, sometimes.

You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.

Adults follow paths. Children explore.

Oh, monsters are scared, " said Lettie. "That's why they're monsters.

I do not remember asking adults about anything, except as a last resort.

She really was pretty, for a grown-up, but when you are seven, beauty is an abstraction, not an imperative.

The ball of dark fur pressed itself into my chest, and I wished she was my kitten, and knew that she was not.

. . . I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.

But I do not actually remember being a monster. I just remember wanting my own way.

The dread had not left my soul.

If I could talk about it, I would not have to do it. I make art.

This book is the book you have just read. It’s done.

...but fear of death gives us strength.

Hasn't there always been a moon?""Bless you. Not in the slightest. I remember the day the moon came. We looked up in the sky--it was all dirty brown and sooty gray here then, not green and blue...

She was the storm, she was the lightning...

In Sarasota, Florida, Stephen King reminded me of the joy of just writing every day.

Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me.

I thought about adults. I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped in adult bodies...

Children, as I have said, use back ways and hidden paths, while adults take roads and official paths

I wanted to shout down to him, to warn him that he was giving flowers to a monster, but I did not.

Nobody actually looks like what they really are on the inside. You don't. I don't.