It’s oddly difficult to think of an introduction for Neil Gaiman. The man has written about almost everything. And you’ll be damned if you say you don’t find his play with words interesting. Book readers and people on the internet alike enjoy his works. We picked some of our favorites.
Happy birthday, Neil Gaiman! Thank you for your writings. This world sure is more fun with them.
- Gaiman has his own brand of humor. This one is taken from the script he wrote for Doctor Who.
“Biting’s excellent. It’s like kissing – only there is a winner.”
And his take on gender issues, hilarious.
“Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft were written by men.”
- In Coraline, he motivates his readers to face their fear with the symbolism of dragons.
“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”
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- Speaking of fairy tales, have you visited your local public library today? Gaiman has huge respect for its librarians.
“Librarians are the coolest people out there doing the hardest job out there on the frontlines. And every time I get to encounter or work with librarians, I’m always impressed by their sheer awesomeness.”
And he warned us not to be rude to them.
“Rule number one: Don’t fuck with librarians.”
- Gaiman believes in humans. His character Shadow, as introduced in the book American Gods, has a strong argument on this one.
“I think I would rather be a man than a god. We don’t need anyone to believe in us. We just keep going anyhow. It’s what we do.”
- Comic books, by the way, is Gaiman’s favorite form of storytelling.
“One of the joys of comics has always been the knowledge that it was, in many ways, untouched ground. It was virgin territory. When I was working on Sandman, I felt a lot of the time that I was actually picking up a machete and heading out into the jungle. I got to write in places and do things that nobody had ever done before. When I’m writing novels I’m painfully aware that I’m working in a medium that people have been writing absolutely jaw-droppingly brilliant things for, you know, three-four thousand years now. You know, you can go back. We have things like The Golden Ass. And you go, well, I don’t know that I’m as good as that and that’s two and a half thousand years old. But with comics I felt like – I can do stuff nobody has ever done. I can do stuff nobody has ever thought of. And I could and it was enormously fun.”
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- And while most of his books contain scary creatures, he’s got our back. This one is from The Ocean at the End of the Lane.
“Oh, monsters are scared,” said Lettie. “That’s why they’re monsters.”
- In Stardust, he challenges us to be curious.
“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.”
- Everybody can break at one point. That is up to you if you will let a sudden turn of event devastate you or make you stronger. In Fragile Things, he emphasizes the power of words.
“Remember: that giants sleep too soundly; that witches are often betrayed by their appetites; dragons have one soft spot, somewhere, always; hearts can be well-hidden, and you can betray them with your tongue.”
And he was ever considerate to those who made the choices most of us would not admit to choosing.
“When angels go bad they are worse than anyone else.”
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- As a child, Batman comics, C. S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia and Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland were his reading must-haves.
“A favorite and favorite forever. Alice was default reading to the point where I knew it by heart.”
- As a grown-up, Gaiman addresses anyone who is thinking about giving up on life through his children’s book The Graveyard Book.
“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.”
- He writes of death and ends in a note that is not meant to scare but is meant to help us accept it (and even laugh at it), in a calming way that we might as well just shrug, live on and put the kettle on.
“Honestly, if you’re given the choice between Armageddon or tea, you don’t say ‘what kind of tea?”
- His writings may sound crazy but in Neverwhere, it is implied that he just doesn’t care.
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“I mean, maybe I am crazy. I mean, maybe. But if this is all there is, then I don’t want to be sane.”
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