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
“Sometimes we can choose the paths we follow. Sometimes our choices are made for us. And sometimes we have no choice at all.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Choices, Decisions, Destiny
“Then, one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Love, Friendship, Dating
“It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”
— Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Tagged: Tragedy, War, humanity
“The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do.”
— Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Tagged: Future, Time
“You grow up reading about pirates and cowboys and spacemen and stuff, and jus' when you think the world's full of amazing things, they tell you it's really all dead whales and chopped-down forests and nuclear waste hanging about for millions of years.”
— Neil Gaiman, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
Tagged: Growing Up, Disappointment
“I believe that it is difficult to kill an idea because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast.”
— Neil Gaiman, The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
Tagged: Ideas, Thinking
“ If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.”
— Neil Gaiman, The View from the Cheap Seats: Selected Nonfiction
Tagged: Books, Reading, Knowledge
“I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend... I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Stars, Universe, Time
“Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
Tagged: Growing Up, adult life, Children
“I have always felt that violence was the last refuge of the incompetent, and empty threats the last sanctuary of the terminally inept.”
— Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere: Author's Preferred Text
Tagged: Violence, Anger, War
“Adventures are all very well in their place, but there's a lot to be said for regular meals and freedom from pain.”
— Neil Gaiman, Stardust
Tagged: Adventures, Freedom
“You don't pass or fail at being a person, dear.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel
Tagged: humanity, Life
“If you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.”
— Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art
Tagged: Knowledge, Education, Success
“Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here.”
— Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art
Tagged: Mistakes, Failure
“The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can. The moment that you feel that just possibly you are walking down the street naked… That’s the moment you may be starting to get it right.”
— Neil Gaiman, Make Good Art
Tagged: Writing, drawing, Dancing, Passion
“Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.”
— Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Tagged: Heartbreak, Love
“There are some as are what they are. And there are some as aren't what they seem to be. And there are some as only seem to be what they seem to be.”
— Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Tagged: Illusions, Life
“We do what we do, because of who we are. If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Be yourself, actions
“I think hell is something you carry around with you. Not somewhere you go.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Hell, Misery, Unhappy
“You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Death, Grieving, Mourning, enjoy life
“It’s part of growing up, I suppose… You always have to leave something behind you.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Growing Up, Moving On
“It is sometimes a mistake to climb; it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt. If you do not climb, you will not fall. This is true. But is it that bad to fail, that hard to fall?”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Failure, Trying, risks
“Some things are too big to be seen; some emotions are too huge to be felt.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: emotions, believing
“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, The Sandman
Tagged: Death, Questions, Time
“You can know anything. It's all there. You just have to find it.”
— Neil Gaiman, The Sandman
Tagged: Education, Knowledge, Learning