Neil Gaiman is not only an incredibly talented writer who manages to make us laugh and tug on our heart strings in the space of one sentence, he is also one of the literary world’s staunchest advocates. He is outspoken on the topics of imagination, fiction, and the power of libraries and bookstores. His fictional works, his essays, and his speeches are full of beautiful and inspirational phrases that will make any book lover sigh in agreement. Here’s a selection of such quotes:
1. “Books are the way the dead communicate with us.”
–The View from the Cheap Seats
2. “What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”
3. “I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.”
–The Ocean at the End of the Lane
4. “Stories you read when you’re the right age never quite leave you. You may forget who wrote them or what the story was called. Sometimes you’ll forget precisely what happened, but if a story touches you it will stay with you, haunting the places in your mind that you rarely ever visit.”
5. “Books were safer than other people anyway.”
–The Ocean at the End of the Lane
6. “Stories are like spiders, with all they long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each.”
7. “Reading is important. Books are important. Librarians are important. (Also, libraries are not child-care facilities, but sometimes feral children raise themselves among the stacks.)”
8. “Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and other dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner.”
9. “No two readers can or will ever read the same book, because the reader builds the book in collaboration with the author.”
–The View from the Cheap Seats
10. “The only thing that kept me going was stories. Stories are hope. They take you out of yourself for a bit, and when you get dropped back in, you’re different- you’re stronger, you’ve seen more, you’ve felt more. Stories are like spiritual currency.”
What’s one of your favorite Neil Gaiman novels?
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Featured image via Vulture
