A philosopher once asked, “Are we human because we gaze at the stars, or do we gaze at them because we are human?” Pointless, really…”Do the stars gaze back?” Now, that’s a question.

Since the dawn of humanity, stories have allowed each of us to be many.

Have you thought about what it means to be a god?” asked the man. He had a beard and a baseball cap. “It means you give up your mortal existence to become a meme: something...

Rules and responsibilities: these are the ties that bind us. We do what we do, because of who we are. If we did otherwise, we would not be ourselves. I will do what I have...

The only water in the forest is the River.

It’s patterns,” he said. “If they think you’re a hero, they’re wrong. After you die, you don’t get to be Beowulf or Perseus or Rama anymore. Whole different set of rules. Chess, not checkers. Go,...

Nobody’s cool, if you’ve got kids.

Rock and roll stars have it much better than writers when they’re on a tour.

A book is a little empathy machine. It puts you inside somebody else’s head. You see out of the world through somebody else’s eyes. It’s very hard to hate people of a certain kind when...

I liked myths. They weren’t adult stories and they weren’t children’s stories. They were better than that. They just were.

They were kissing. Put like that, and you could be forgiven for presuming that this was a normal kiss, all lips and skin and possibly even a little tongue. You’d miss how he smiled, how...

It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particularly long to learn that for yourself. There is a theory that, in the whole world, there are only five hundred real...

When the first living thing existed, I was there waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished. I’ll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the...

Gee-word?””Gods. What were you doin’ the day they handed out brains, boy, anyway?””Someone was telling a story about stealing a tiger’s balls, and I had to stop and find out how it ended.

I’m writing. The pages are starting to stack up. My morale is improving the more I feel like a writer.

There’s never been a true war that wasn’t fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely...

I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad book for children . . . do not discourage children from reading because you feel they are reading the wrong thing. Fiction you do...

It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale – they are well-equipped to deal with these

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and adventures are the shadow truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes and forgotten.

Of course you don’t believe in fairies. You’re fifteen. You think I believed in fairies at fifteen? Took me until I was at least a hundred and forty. Hundred and fifty, maybe. Anyway, he wasn’t...

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

This book is the book you have just read. It’s done.

•They’re like chickens who get out of the henhouse, and they’re so proud of themselves, and so puffed up from being able to eat all the worms and beetles and caterpillars they want, that they...

Os deuses morrem. E, quando morrem mesmo, são esquecidos e ninguém os chora. As ideias são mais difíceis de matar do que as pessoas, mas, no fim, é possível matá-las.

So life isn’t exciting?” continued Gary. “Great. Give me boredom. At least I know where I’m going to eat and sleep tonight. I’ll still have a job on Monday. Yeah?” He turned and looked at...

Anyone who calls you “little lady” has already excluded you from the set of people worth listening to.

Hasn’t there always been a moon?””Bless you. Not in the slightest. I remember the day the moon came. We looked up in the sky–it was all dirty brown and sooty gray here then, not green...

Somebody would say, `Can you write us an article about big, bodice-ripping, blockbusting romance novels?’ And I’d say, `Yes, of course,’ because I was a hungry young journalist.

It is said that scattered through Despair’s domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will...

Notoriety wasn’t as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity.

25 And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the eastern gate, saying ‘Where is the flaming sword that was given unto thee?’26 And the Angel said, ‘I had it here only a moment...

Let’s start a new tomorrow, today.

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

My very small part in WATCHMEN is that, every now and then, Alan would phone me: ”Neil, you’re an educated man. Where does it say…”He would need a quote from the Bible, or an essay...

Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

It occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were,...

You know what my mum once said?’ said Rosie… ‘She said that if a just-married couple put a coin in a jar every time they make love in their first year, and take a coin...

The heart is greater than the universe, for it can find pity in it for everything in the universe, and the universe itself can feel no pity. The heart is greater than a King, because...

The islanders know how to find it. But they are too wise to come here, to take its gold. They say that the cave makes you evil: that each time you visit it, each time...

Science is a way of talking about the universe in words that bind it to a common reality.Magic is a method of talking to the universe in words that it cannot ignore.The two are rarely...

Why are we talking about this good and evil? They’re just names for sides. We know that.

Nearly’ only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.

I never fell. I don’t care what they say. I’m still doing my job, as I see it.

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...

Fat Charlie wondered what Rosie’s mother would usually hear in a church. Probably just cries of “Back! Foul best of Hell!” followed by gasps of “Is it alive?” and a nervous inquiry as to whether...

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...

Old, old, drink. Tiiiiny little drink. Very small. Almost not there.” She began to hiccup.

And there never was an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.

I started writing when I was about 20, 21 maybe.

CORALINE’S STORYTHERE WAS A GIRL HER NAME WAS APPLE. SHE USED TO DANCE A LOT. SHE DANCED AND DANCED UNTIL HER FEET TURND INTO SOSSAJES. THE END.