Sandman Neil Gaiman Quotes & Sayings

People think dreams aren't real just because they aren't made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes. — Neil Gaiman

[Dream] I do not want a grape.
[Desire] I could make you want one. — Neil Gaiman

But we do not need to recount every sermon and eulogy. After all, you were there. — Neil Gaiman

From 'The Sandman' and 'Black Orchid' to 'Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?,' Neil Gaiman has provided some of the most memorable stories of the comic book industry. — Jim Lee

Death has a body like a model, the clothes of a poet and the smile of your best friend. She wears a top hat for fun, her ankh necklace for power, and carries a big black umbrella for travelling to the 'sunless lands.' I wonder what she smells like? I'm sure it's fresh and clean and her laugh must be rinkly or maybe it's warm and chuckly, but whatever it is, Death laughs a lot.
We talk about the 'miracle of birth' but what about the 'miracle of death'? We have the science of death pretty much figured out, but death's magic and inevitability have been feared and ignored for a long time now.
What if Death is a person? — Neil Gaiman

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. — Neil Gaiman

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot. — Neil Gaiman

So this is your library, huh, Lucien? It's a big place What's so special about it, then?"
"Oh, it's a very unusual library, Matthew. Somewhere in here is every story that has every been dreamed. "
"They're just books."
"Oh yes. But unusual books. You'll find none of them on Earth. In this section, for example, are novels their authors never wrote, or never finished, except in dreams. — Neil Gaiman

I move from dreamer to dreamer, from dream to dream, hunting for what I need. Slipping and sliding and flickering through the dreams; and the dreamer will wake, and wonder why this dream seemed different, wonder how real their lives can truly be. — Neil Gaiman

Everybody who has ever read Sandman knows exactly what the Sandman looks like, which is more than anybody who has ever read The Catcher in the Rye can say about Holden Caufield. — Neil Gaiman

Everything created has a beginning, Destiny of the Endless ... as everything created has an end. — Neil Gaiman

Seek not revenge, but the Buddha. — Neil Gaiman

I am the keeper of the library, Matthew. Without it I am nothing. Were it to be destroyed again, it would destroy me as well. — Neil Gaiman

We are all improved by the glow of memory. — Neil Gaiman

Is there a word for forgetting the name of someone when you want to introduce them to someone else at the same time you realize you've forgotten the name of the person you're introducing them to as well?"
"No. — Neil Gaiman

The only reason people die, is because EVERYONE does it. You all just go along with it.
It's RUBBISH, death. It's STUPID. I don't want nothing to do with it. — Neil Gaiman

Dreams shape the world — Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman's 'Sandman' just rocked my world in the late '80s and early '90s. I couldn't read them fast enough. — Tamora Pierce

The bonds of family bind us up, support us, help us. And they are also a bond from which it is difficult, perhaps impossible to extricate oneself. — Neil Gaiman

Writers are liars my dear, surely you know that by now? — Neil Gaiman

Love takes hostages. — Neil Gaiman

Love isn't quite desire ... Love is probably a little bit in The Sandman's domain. Love is partly a dream, it's partly to do with desire, and sometimes it's partly to do with death, as well. It's also very often something to do with delirium ... — Neil Gaiman

For there was nothing in his eyes but the black night and the cold stars. — Susanna Clarke

The price of getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted. — Neil Gaiman

I don't know. I had to be something, didn't I? — Neil Gaiman

I am not in my gallery and neither do I hold your sigil. Will you speak to me? — Neil Gaiman

I walk across the dreaming sands under the pale moon: through the dreams of countries and cities, past dreams of places long gone and times beyond recall. — Neil Gaiman

He said, "Were he only like his sister - what a difference that would make! For there never was such a sweet and gentle lady! I hear her footsteps, as she goes about the world. I hear the swish-swish-swish of her silken gown and the jingle-jangle of the silver chain about her neck. Her smile is full of comfort and her eyes are kind and happy! How I long to see her!"
"Who, sir?" asked Paramore, puzzled.
"Why, his sister, John. His sister. — Susanna Clarke

I don't really like driving in the snow. There's something about the motion of the falling snowflakes that hurts my eyes, throws my sense of balance all to hell. It's like tumbling into a field of stars. — Neil Gaiman

Without warning a lady appeared.
She came from the direction of Friday-street, for she had just been with Mr. Newbolt. She strode capably through the snow. She wore a black silk gown and something very queer swung from a silver chain about her neck. Her smile was full of comfort and her eyes were kind and happy. She was just as Mr. Newbolt had described.
And the name of this lady was Death. — Susanna Clarke

Ohhh. Humanity, I Love You. You never cease to amaze me. This has been amusing, little ghost, and that was not something I expected. But every playtime must come to an end. This dream is over.
- "Playing House" From THE SANDMAN #12 — Neil Gaiman

The joy of doing 'Sandman' was doing a comic and telling people, 'No, it has an end,' at a time when nobody thought you could actually get to the end and stop doing a comic that people were still buying just because you'd finished. — Neil Gaiman

They talk of me going around buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No. They belong to themselves ... they just hate to face up to it. — Neil Gaiman

How would you feel about life if Death was your older sister? — Neil Gaiman

What power would hell have if those imprisoned here would not be able to dream of heaven? — Neil Gaiman

Destiny smells of dust and the libraries of the night. — Neil Gaiman

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. — Neil Gaiman

I must confess, I have always wondered what lay beyond life, my dear.
Yeah, everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out. — Neil Gaiman

Never trust the storyteller. Only trust the story. — Neil Gaiman

Delirium: You use that word so much. Responsibilities. Do you ever think about what that means? I mean, what does it mean to you? In your head?
Dream: Well, I use it to refer that area of existence over which I exert a certain amount of control or influence. In my case, the realm and action of dreaming.
Delirium: Hump. It's more than that. The things we do make echoes. S'pose, f'rinstance, you stop on a street corner and admire a brilliant fork of lightning
ZAP! Well for ages after people and things will stop on that very same corner, stare up at the sky. They wouldn't even know what they were looking for. Some of them might see a ghost bolt of lightning in the street. Some of them might even be killed by it. Our existence deforms the universe. THAT'S responsibility. — Neil Gaiman

One thing I've learned: you can know anything, it's all there, you just have to find it. — Neil Gaiman

I watched him even then as he fell, his face undefeated, his eyes still proud — Neil Gaiman

For love is no part of the dreamworld. Love belongs to Desire, and Desire is always cruel. — Neil Gaiman

You hurt. It's okay. I hurt too. Hold my hand. — Neil Gaiman

One cannot begin a new dream without abandoning the last [one]. — Neil Gaiman

To be Despair. It is a portrait. Only close your eyes and feel. — Neil Gaiman

Neil [Gaiman, creator of the comic Sandman, featuring the Amos-based character Delirium] believes that faeries have gone beyond cool. They've transcended cool. I just think alternate realities make you a good writer. If your work is any more than one dimension, you believe in faeries. I'm sure I'll start thinking now about all the people I know who don't believe, that I quite like. We can still go have a pint. Not the Chardonnay, though. — Tori Amos

There is a madness, yes, this is true. Few mortals possess it, the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild wood of madness ... — Neil Gaiman

Any view of things that is not strange, is false. — Neil Gaiman

Delirium: "What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?"
Dream: "There isn't one."
Delirium: "Oh. I thought maybe there was. — Neil Gaiman

Is this real? Or is it just my imagination?"
"If you tell me what the difference is I might be able to tell you. — Neil Gaiman

I wanted to put a reference to masturbation in one of the scripts for the Sandman. It was immediately cut by the editor [Karen Berger]. She told me, "There's no masturbation in the DC Universe." To which my reaction was, "Well, that explains a lot about the DC Universe. — Neil Gaiman

DREAM ! Dreams shape the world . Dreams create the world anew, every night. Do not dream the world the way it is now, in thrall to our feline masters and mistresses — Neil Gaiman

You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less. — Neil Gaiman