Neil Gaiman citáty

„I really don’t know what "I love you" means.
I think it means don’t leave me here alone…“

—  Neil Gaiman

Dark Sonnet

I don’t think that I’ve been in love as such,

although I liked a few folk pretty well.

Love must be vaster than my smiles or touch,

for brave men died and empires rose and fell.

For love, girls follow boys to foreign lands,

and men have followed women into hell.

In plays and poems someone understands,

there’s something makes us more than blood and bone.

And more than biological demands

for me love’s like the wind unseen, unknown.

I see the trees are bending where it’s been.

I know that it leaves wreckage where it’s blown.

I really don’t know what "I love you" means.

I think it means don’t leave me here alone...
Zdroj: báseň Dark Sonnet z knihy Dark Adventures in the Dream Trade

„Kočky nemají jména… To jen vy lidé máte jména. Protože nevíte, kdo jste. My víme, kdo jsme, tak nepotřebujeme jména.“

—  Neil Gaiman

„Pohádky jsou více než pravdivé – ne proto, že nám říkají, že existují draci, ale protože nám říkají, že je můžeme porazit.“

—  Neil Gaiman

„"Tohle," ukázal jsem na vesmír. "K čemu to je?"
"K čemu? Ale vždyť to je vesmír."“

—  Neil Gaiman

Vražedná tajemství

„Dnes mě čeká smrt: je jako uzdravení, jako procházka v zahradě po nemoci.
Dnes mě čeká smrt: je jako vůně myrhy, jako posezení pod plachtou dobrého větru.
Dnes mě čeká smrt: je jako běh potůčku, jako návrat otroka z galejí.
Dnes mě čeká smrt: je jako domov, jejž člověk touží spatřit po rocích v zajetí.“

—  Neil Gaiman

„Příběhy jsou svým způsobem také zrcadla. Odvádějí naši pozornost od věcí v temnotě.“

—  Neil Gaiman

„Zrcadla jsou úžasná věc. Zdá se, že nám říkají pravdu, že odrážejí život. Ale nastavte správně zrcadlo a ono vám bude lhát tak přesvědčivě, že uvěříte, že něco zmizelo.“

—  Neil Gaiman

„Lidé si myslí, že sny nejsou skutečné, protože nejsou z látky, z částic. Sny jsou skutečné, ale skládají se z názorů, představ, vzpomínek, hříček a ztracených nadějí…“

—  Neil Gaiman, Sandman

„Někdy se vzbudíš. Někdy tě pád zabije. A někdy, když padáš, vzlétneš.“

—  Neil Gaiman

„Neodvážiš-li se ničeho, pak na konci dne nic bude vše, co jsi získal.“

—  Neil Gaiman

Kniha hřbitova

„Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable.“

—  Neil Gaiman

The character "Rose Walker" in The Sandman #65
Kontext: 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 someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up a whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life... You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' or 'how very perceptive' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.

„Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.“

—  Neil Gaiman

Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)
Kontext: We writers – and especially writers for children, but all writers – have an obligation to our readers: it's the obligation to write true things, especially important when we are creating tales of people who do not exist in places that never were – to understand that truth is not in what happens but what it tells us about who we are. Fiction is the lie that tells the truth, after all.

„He said nothing: seldom do those who are silent make mistakes.“

—  Neil Gaiman

Zdroj: Norse Mythology (2017), Chapter 4, “Mimir’s Head and Odin’s Eye” (p. 45)

„At the best of times his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten, in an alphabet unimagined. Silas wrapped the shadows around him like a blanket, and stared after the way the boy had gone, and did not move to follow.“

—  Neil Gaiman, kniha The Graveyard Book

Zdroj: The Graveyard Book (2008), Ch. 6

„"What's your name," Coraline asked the cat. "Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?"
"Cats don't have names," it said.
"No?" said Coraline.
"No," said the cat. "Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names."“

—  Neil Gaiman, kniha Coraline

Coraline (2002)

„We have an obligation to make things beautiful. Not to leave the world uglier than we found it, not to empty the oceans, not to leave our problems for the next generation. We have an obligation to clean up after ourselves, and not leave our children with a world we've shortsightedly messed up, shortchanged, and crippled.“

—  Neil Gaiman

Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)

„Nothing dates harder and faster and more strangely than the future.“

—  Neil Gaiman

"Of Time, and Gully Foyle", Foreword to a 1999 edition of The Stars My Destination (1956)
Kontext: You can tell when a Hollywood historical film was made by looking at the eye makeup of their leading ladies, and you can tell the date of an old science fiction novel by every word on the page. Nothing dates harder and faster and more strangely than the future.

„Writers may be solitary but they also tend to flock together: they like being solitary together.“

—  Neil Gaiman

Kontext: Writers may be solitary but they also tend to flock together: they like being solitary together. I knew a lot of writers in London and many of them were award-winning writers and many of them were award-winning, respectable writers. And the trouble with being an award-winning, respectable writer is that you probably are not making a living.
If you write one well-reviewed, well-respected, not bad selling, but not a bestseller list book every three years, which you sell for a whopping 30,000 pounds, that's still going to average out to 10,000 pounds a year and you will make more managing a McDonald's. With overtime you'd probably make more working in a McDonald's. So there were incredibly well-respected, award-winning senior writers who, to make ends meet, were writing film novelizations and TV novelizations under pen names that they were desperately embarrassed about and didn't want anybody to know about.

January magazine interview (2002)

„The world doesn't have to be like this. Things can be different.“

—  Neil Gaiman

Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming (2013)
Kontext: You're also finding out something as you read vitally important for making your way in the world. And it's this: The world doesn't have to be like this. Things can be different.