Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, audio theatre, and films. His notable works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie medals. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 November 1960
CityPortchester, England
This was the void. Not blackness, not nothingness. This was what lay beneath the thinly painted scrim of reality.
I was not scared of anything, when I read my book...
I would read. I would explore
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.
Words save our lives, sometimes.
It's always too late for sorries, but I appreciate the sentiment.
My bed was pushed up hard against the wall just below the window. I loved to sleep with the windows open. Rainy nights were the best of all: I would open my windows and put my head on my pillow and close my eyes and feel the wind on my face and listen to the trees sway and creak. There would be raindrops blown onto my face, too, if I was lucky, and I would imagine that I was in my boat on the ocean and that it was swaying with the swell of the sea. I did not imagine that I was a pirate, or that I was going anywhere. I was just on my boat.
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.
You can't just boss bacteria around like that," said the younger Mrs. Hempstock. "They don't like it." "Stuff and silliness," said the old lady. "You leave wigglers alone and they'll be carrying on like anything. Show them who's boss and they can't do enough for you. You've tasted my cheese..
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...
I wondered if that was true: if they were all really children wrapped up in adult bodies, like children's books hidden in the middle of dull, long adult books, the kind with no pictures or conversations.
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.
They were not my friends, after all. They were just the people I went to school with.
If you have something specific and visible to fear, rather than something that could be anything, it is easier.