Olga Ush

55 Deep Neil Gaiman Quotes That'll Help You Through Your Existential Crisis

Life is confusing as hell, but these quotes will help you make sense of some things.
Holly Riordan
June 16, 2016
“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Love, Dating
“Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody. All of the people in the whole world, I mean everybody — no matter how dull and boring they are on the outside. Inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds... Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands, maybe.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: inner beauty, Magic
“There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.”
— Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Tagged: fragile, Heartbreak, Dreams, Love
“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
Tagged: Books, Reading
“You get what anybody gets - you get a lifetime.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
“When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better. 'It's all right' we whisper, 'I'm here, I love you.' and we lie: 'I'll never leave you.' For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad.”
— Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days
Tagged: Unhappy, Love, Friendship, support
“Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
Tagged: Growing Up, adult life
“I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?”
— Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Tagged: Hard Work, Dreams
“When you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.”
— Neil Gaiman, Coraline
Tagged: Bravery, Courage, Fear
“You have to believe. Otherwise, it will never happen”
— Neil Gaiman, Stardust
Tagged: Dreams, Optimism, believing
“Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at the stars because we are human?”
— Neil Gaiman, Stardust
Tagged: humanity, Universe
“When angels go bad they are worse than anyone else. Remember Lucifer used to be an angel.”
— Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere: Author's Preferred Text
Tagged: Angels, Evil
“I mean, maybe I am crazy. I mean, maybe. But if this is all there is, then I don't want to be sane.”
— Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere: Author's Preferred Text
Tagged: crazy, Insanity, Life
“Every hour wounds. The last one kills.”
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Tagged: Time, Death
“The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.”
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Tagged: War, Evil, Society
“I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Tagged: Life, enjoy life
“There's none so blind as those who will not listen.”
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Tagged: ignorant, Education
“'Not only are there no happy endings,' she told him, 'there aren't even any endings.'”
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Tagged: Endings, Death, Stories
“He wondered whether home was a thing that happened to a place after a while, or if it was something that you found in the end, if you simply walked and waited and willed it long enough.”
— Neil Gaiman, American Gods
Tagged: Home, Peace
“Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometimes monsters are things people should be scared of, but they aren't.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
Tagged: monsters, Evil, Fear
“That's the trouble with living things. Don't last very long. Kittens one day, old cats the next. And then just memories. And the memories fade and blend and smudge together.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
Tagged: Memories, Death, Life
“Always worth it to have tried, even if you fail, even if you fall like a meteor forever. Better to have flamed in the darkness, to have inspired others, to have lived, than to have sat in the darkness, cursing the people who borrowed, but did not return, your candle.”
— Neil Gaiman, Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Tagged: Failure, risks
“You never forget. It must be somewhere inside you. Even if the brain has forgotten, perhaps the teeth remember. Or the fingers.”
— Neil Gaiman, Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Tagged: Memories, remember, forget
“Life is life, and it is infinitely better than the alternative, or so we presume, for nobody returns to dispute it.”
— Neil Gaiman, Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Tagged: Life, Death, enjoy life
“We are all wearing masks. That is what makes us interesting.”
— Neil Gaiman, Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances
Tagged: Masks, humanity, liars
“You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you can change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
Tagged: Death, Life, Potential, Dreams
“Fear is contagious. You can catch it. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say that they're scared for the fear to become real.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
Tagged: Fear, emotions
“It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book
Tagged: moving, Home, Happiness
“Everybody going to be dead one day, just give them time.”
— Neil Gaiman, Anansi Boys
Tagged: Life, Death, Time
“You don’t need princes to save you. I don’t have a lot of patience for stories in which women are rescued by men.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sleeper and the Spindle
Tagged: princess, Dating, Love