The Ocean at the End of the Lane

by Neil Gaiman

I liked that. Books were safer than other people anyway.

Meeeee

“How old are you, really?” I asked. “Eleven.” I thought for a bit. Then I asked, “How long have you been eleven for?”

Me -flashing back to Twilight lol

Adults follow paths. Children explore. Adults are content to walk the same way, hundreds of times, or thousands; perhaps it never occurs to adults to step off the paths, to creep beneath rhododendrons, to find the spaces between fences.

I thought, I’m going to die. And, thinking that, I was determined to live.

Now he pushed me down again, but fear of death gives us strength:

“Nobody actually looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.”

“Monsters come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them are things people are scared of. Some of them are things that look like things people used to be scared of a long time ago. Sometimes monsters are things people should be scared of, but they aren’t.”

100%

“I’m going to tell you something important. Grown-ups don’t look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they’re big and thoughtless and they always know what they’re doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. The truth is, there aren’t any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”

You only need men if you want to breed more men.”

“No,” but she said it kindly. “You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.” A flash of resentment. It’s hard enough being alive, trying to survive in the world and find your place in it, to do the things you need to do to get by, without wondering if the thing you just did, whatever it was, was worth someone having . . . if not died, then having given up her life. It wasn’t fair.

“What you remembered? Probably. More or less. Different people remember things differently, and you’ll not get any two people to remember anything the same, whether they were there or not. You stand two of you lot next to each other, and you could be continents away for all it means anything.”

“You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.” I put the empty cup and plate down on the ground. Ginnie Hempstock said, “I think you’re doing better than you were the last time we saw you. You’re growing a new heart, for a start.”