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Neil Gaiman

" I mean, d'you know what eternity is? There's this big mountain, see, a mile high, at the end of the universe, and once every thousand years there's this little bird-""What little bird?" said Aziraphale suspiciously."This little bird I'm talking about. And every thousand years-""The same bird every thousand years?"Crowley hesitated. "Yeah," he said."Bloody ancient bird, then.""Okay. And every thousand years this bird flies-""-limps-""-flies all the way to this mountain and sharpens its beak-""Hold on. You can't do that. Between here and the end of the universe there's loads of-" The angel waved a hand expansively, if a little unsteadily. "Loads of buggerall, dear boy.""But it gets there anyway," Crowley persevered."How?""It doesn't matter!""It could use a space ship," said the angel.Crowley subsided a bit. "Yeah," he said. "If you like. Anyway, this bird-""Only it is the end of the universe we're talking about," said Aziraphale. "So it'd have to be one of those space ships where your descendants are the ones who get out at the other end. You have to tell your descendants, you say, When you get to the Mountain, you've got to-" He hesitated. "What havethey got to do?""Sharpen its beak on the mountain," said Crowley. "And then it flies back-""-in the space ship-""And after a thousand years it goes and does it all again," said Crowley quickly.There was a moment of drunken silence."Seems a lot of effort just to sharpen a beak," mused Aziraphale."Listen," said Crowley urgently, "the point is that when the bird has worn the mountain down to nothing, right, then-"Aziraphale opened his mouth. Crowley just knew he was going to make some point about the relative hardness of birds' beaks and granite mountains, and plunged on quickly."-then you still won't have finished watching The Sound of Music."Aziraphale froze."And you'll enjoy it," Crowley said relentlessly. "You really will.""My dear boy-""You won't have a choice.""Listen-""Heaven has no taste.""Now-""And not one single sushi restaurant."A look of pain crossed the angel's suddenly very serious face. "

Neil Gaiman

Humor , Eternity

related quotes

" I went away in my head, into a book. That was where I went whenever real life was too hard or too inflexible. "

Neil Gaiman

Books

" Rule number one: Don't fuck with librarians. "

Neil Gaiman

Books , Fact

" . . . I lay on the bed and lost myself in the stories. I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway. "

Neil Gaiman

Books

" We owe it to each other to tell stories. "

Neil Gaiman

Books , Stories

" Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you've never been. Once you've visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world that you grew up in. Discontent is a good thing: discontented people can modify and improve their worlds, leave them better, leave them different.And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a few words about escapism. I hear the term bandied about as if it's a bad thing. As if "escapist" fiction is a cheap opiate used by the muddled and the foolish and the deluded, and the only fiction that is worthy, for adults or for children, is mimetic fiction, mirroring the worst of the world the reader finds herself in.If you were trapped in an impossible situation, in an unpleasant place, with people who meant you ill, and someone offered you a temporary escape, why wouldn't you take it? And escapist fiction is just that: fiction that opens a door, shows the sunlight outside, gives you a place to go where you are in control, are with people you want to be with(and books are real places, make no mistake about that); and more importantly, during your escape, books can also give you knowledge about the world and your predicament, give you weapons, give you armour: real things you can take back into your prison. Skills and knowledge and tools you can use to escape for real.As JRR Tolkien reminded us, the only people who inveigh against escape are jailers. "

Neil Gaiman

Books , escapism

" October knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter or of shutting a book, did not end a tale. Having admitted that, he would also avow that happy endings were never difficult to find: "It is simply a matter," he explained to April, "of finding a sunny place in a garden, where the light is golden and the grass is soft; somewhere to rest, to stop reading, and to be content. "

Neil Gaiman

Books , endings

" Reading is important.Books are important.Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.) "

Neil Gaiman

Books

" Soon enough his head would be swimming with tales of derring-do and high adventure, tales of beautiful maidens kissed, of evildoers shot with pistols or fought with swords, of bags of gold, of diamonds as big as the tip of your thumb, of lost cities and of vast mountains, of steam-trains and clipper ships, of pampas, oceans, deserts, tundra. "

Neil Gaiman

Books , Reading

" I think that pretty much every form of fiction (I‚Äôd include fantasy, obviously) can actually be a real escape from places where you feel bad, and from bad places. It can be a safe place you go, like going on holiday, and it can be somewhere that, while you‚Äôve escaped, actually teaches you things you need to know when you go back, that gives you knowledge and armour and tools to change the bad place you were in.So no, they‚Äôre not escapist. They‚Äôre escape. "

Neil Gaiman

Books

" My parents would frisk me before family events. Before weddings, funerals, bar mitzvahs, and what have you. Because if they didn't, then the book would be hidden inside some pocket or other and as soon as whatever it was got under way I'd be found in a corner. That was who I was...that was what I did. I was the kid with the book. "

Neil Gaiman

Books , Reading

" Books smell and feel better. They have that wonderful thingness of turning the pages. "

Neil Gaiman

Books

" Often the adult book is not for you, not yet, or will only be for you when you're ready. But sometimes you will read it anyway, and you will take from it whatever you can. Then, perhaps, you will come back to it when you're older, and you will find the book has changed because you have changed as well, and the book is wiser, or more foolish, because you are wiser or more foolish than you were as a child. "

Neil Gaiman

Books , adulthood

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