Status Updates From The View from the Cheap Sea...

“If someone tells you what a story is about, they are probably right. If they tell you that that is all the story is about, they are very definitely wrong. Any story is about a host of things.”

“I write stories to find out what I think about things.”

“I wonder who I would have been, without those shelves, without those people and those places, without books. I would have been lonely, I think, and empty, needing something for which I did not have the words.”

“We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort.”

“I was now writing about being a parent, and the fundamental most comical tragedy of parenthood: that if you do your job properly, if you, as a parent, raise your children well, they won’t need you anymore. If you did it properly, they go away. And they have lives and they have families and they have futures.”

I love how he writes about Amanda Palmer. It’s so sweet and honest and gentle.

Whenever I read anything by Neil Gaiman, whether it's fiction, poetry, essays, or blog posts, or something I agree with or don't, I always want to write myself. His voice is so warm and distinct.

Whenever I read anything by Neil Gaiman, whether it's fiction, poetry, essays, or blog posts, or something I agree with or don't, I always want to write myself. His voice is so warm and distinct.

Cada ensayo que leo hace que lo quiera y admire más. Este libro es una joya.

Mostly about libraries and why reading is important, especially if you are a writer.

'Fiction is the lie that tells the truth.'

'People who cannot understand each other cannot exchange ideas, cannot communicate, and translation programs only get you so far.'

'You learn that everyone else out there is a me as well.'

'The world does not have to be like this. Things can be different.'

'I believe that it is difficult to kill an idea because ideas are invisible and contagious, and they move fast.'

Is it my OCD telling me I have to finish some of these books that’ve been hanging on on my “currently reading” list before diving into something new? Probably. I like things to be neat and orderly.

I'M SO INSPIRED, I LOVE NEIL GAIMAN SO MUCH!!! i also constantly want to cry and i'm still pretty much at the beginning of this book

On "Hothouse", by Brian Aldiss:

"It's the only science fiction novel I can think of that celebrates the process of composting. Things grow and die and rot and new things grow."

Loved that line.

"Fairy tales, as GK Chesterton once pointed out, are not true. They are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be defeated."

"Sometimes fiction is a way of coping with the poison of the world in a way that lets us survive it."

Thank you, Neil Gaiman, for just letting me know what my boyfriends best birthday present will be.

"And he told me that anything more than twelve minutes of personal pain was self-indulgence, which did more to jerk me out of the state of complete numbness I was in than anything else could have done."

Ahhh all my hold books are suddenly coming in at once, gotta get through this faster!

On books:
'I would have been lonely, I think, and empty, needing something for which I did not have the words.'

'I regarded his insistence that I should take sandwiches as an insidious plot to embarrass me'

'everything you can see, including the walls, was, at some point, imagined'

Fiction can show you a different world. It can take you somewhere you’ve never been. Once you’ve visited other worlds, like those who ate fairy fruit, you can never be entirely content with the world you grew up in.

No tengo ni idea de algunos de los autores/libros de los que habla, pero Gaiman hace que cualquier cosa suene interesante así que todo bien y correcto.

This is so excellent. He has great advice for artists, and even better, for me as a reader, I have been building up a "want to read" list out of all the books and comics he's recommending via his speeches and introductions of various books.... the best way to find more great things to read is to find what others love. And I trust his judgment.

This is absolutely delightful so far.

Creo que estaré un tiempo mencionando a Gaiman en todas mis conversaciones.

Sooo interesting!