Fragile Things

by Neil Gaiman

‘I think . . . that I would rather recollect a life misspent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt.’

There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.

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.

Stories, like people and butterflies and songbirds’ eggs and human hearts and dreams, are also fragile things, made up of nothing stronger or more lasting than twenty-six letters and a handful of punctuation marks.

when a doctor goes to the bad, he is a fouler and darker creature than the worst cutthroat.

There was a boy, October said, who was miserable at home, although they did not beat him. He did not fit well, not his family, his town, nor even his life. He had two older brothers, who were twins, older than he was, and who hurt him or ignored him, and were popular.

ordinary Gaiman characters lol

daydreams crossed the border and became plans.

It’s an artist’s job to show people the world they live in.

a perfect perfect world you could fuck people without giving them a piece of your heart. And every glittering kiss and every touch of flesh is another shard of heart you’ll never see again. Until walking (waking? calling?) on your own is unsupportable.

it’s not about what’s fashionable to believe, it’s about the truth.’

Some of us write the bestsellers, some of us read them, some of us get the prizes, some of us don’t. What’s important is being human, isn’t it? It’s how good a person you are. Being alive.’

So many things in this town can hurt you, but the dead don’t hurt you. Living people hurt you. They hurt you so bad.’

People come into your life for a reason.

Things come and go and people come and go too damn fast.

You know how it is when you love someone? And the hard part, the bad part, the Jerry Springer Show part is that you never stop loving someone. There’s always a piece of them in your heart.

if we do not fight to create a future there will be no future for any of us.

Words can wound, and wounds can heal.

Some girls spurn my heart; others touch it, kiss it, caress it, punish it with all manner of endearments before they return it to my keeping. Some never even see it.

We owe it to each other to tell stories, as people simply, not as father and daughter.

But we make our own mistakes. We sleep unwisely. It is our right.

I suppose you’ve never had to identify a body, dear?’ ‘No.’ ‘That’s a blessing. I remember looking at them and thinking, What if I’m wrong? What if it’s not him after all? My younger brother

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 betray them with your tongue.

Remember your name. Do not lose hope – what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story

Nobody gets through life without losing a few things on the way.

‘I was never much of a one for cats,’ he said suddenly. ‘Not really. I liked dogs. Big, faithful things. You knew where you were with a dog. Not cats. Go off for days on end, you don’t see them. When I was a lad, we had a cat, it was called Ginger. There was a family down the street, they had a cat they called Marmalade. Turned out it was the same cat, getting fed by all of us. Well, I mean. Sneaky little buggers. You can’t trust them.

tell me about it lol

‘That’s something about old people, when they cry like children, you don’t know where to look, do you?

I suppose I could claim that I had always suspected that the world was a cheap and shoddy sham, a bad cover for something deeper and weirder and infinitely more strange, and that, in some way, I already knew the truth. But I think that’s just how the world has always been.

They say, Here’s the truth, and I say, Is that all there is? And they say, Kind of. Pretty much. As far as we know.

‘We’re memory,’ I told her. ‘That’s what we are. Memory.’

But if the nightmare died, the dream was dead too.

Reality is at fault.

You become very aware of your breathing, when you only have a couple of hours of air remaining.

‘Keep looking, hon,’ she said. ‘You’ll find her when you’re ready.’

‘When you die,’ says a dark-haired woman at the next table, ‘they can make you into diamonds now. It’s scientific. That’s how I want to be remembered. I want to shine.’

‘They’re just girls,’ said Vic. ‘They don’t come from another planet.’

Kitchens are good at parties. You never need an excuse to be there

‘You cannot hear a poem without it changing you,’

But where does contagion end and art begin?’

It’s the strangest thing about poetry – you can tell it’s poetry, even if you don’t speak the language.

the lightning bug or firefly (Photinus pyralis) is more of a beetle than it is a glow-worm,’

fun fact

‘You’re playing with fire,’ she warned him. ‘That’s how I know I’m alive,’ said Zebediah T. Crawcrustle.

We save our lives in such unlikely ways.