The Graveyard Book

by Neil Gaiman

“He looks like nobody but himself,” said Mrs. Owens, firmly. “He looks like nobody.” “Then Nobody it is,” said Silas. “Nobody Owens.”

A graveyard is not normally a democracy, and yet death is the great democracy,

“You’re brave. You are the bravest person I know, and you are my friend. I don’t care if you are imaginary.”

“You are ignorant, boy,” said Miss Lupescu. “This is bad. And you are content to be ignorant, which is worse. Repeat after me, there are the living and the dead, there are day-folk and night-folk, there are ghouls and mist-walkers, there are the high hunters and the Hounds of God. Also, there are solitary types.”

But at least if he died, thought Bod, he would have died as himself, with all his memories, knowing who his parents were, who Silas was, even who Miss Lupescu was.

“They kill themselves, you mean?” said Bod. He was about eight years old, wide-eyed and inquisitive, and he was not stupid. “Indeed.” “Does it work? Are they happier dead?” “Sometimes. Mostly, no. It’s like the people who believe they’ll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn’t work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”

the Macabray, the dance of the living and the dead, the dance with Death.

“Which means,” said Bod, “you’re asking the wrong question.” Silas raised an eyebrow. “How so?” “Well,” said Bod. “If I go outside in the world, the question isn’t ‘who will keep me safe from him?’” “No?” “No. It’s ‘who will keep him safe from me?’”

Fear is contagious. You can catch it. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say that they’re scared for the fear to become real.

“Of all the organs,” said Nehemiah Trot, “the tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste our sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue.

If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”

“Tell me about revenge.” “Dish best served cold,” said Nehemiah Trot. “Do not take revenge in the heat of the moment. Instead, wait until the hour is propitious.

“People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.”

You’re always you, and that don’t change, and you’re always changing, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Bod said, “I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want,” he said, and then he paused and he thought. “I want everything.”