Réka > Réka's Quotes

“Hell of simulation, which is no longer one of torture, but of subtle, maleficent, elusive twisting of meaning...”
― Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

“When angels go bad they are worse than anyone else. Remember Lucifer used to be an angel.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

“When I was a child, adults would tell me not to make things up, warning me of what would happen if I did. As far as I can tell so far, it seems to involve lots of foreign travel and not having to get up too early in the morning.”
― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

“I have never found anybody who could stand to accept the daily demonstrative love I feel in me, and give back as good as I give.”
― Sylvia Plath, Journals of Sylvia Plath

“There is nothing so pitiful as a young cynic because he has gone from knowing nothing to believing nothing.”
― Maya Angelou

“I'm a cynical idealist.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“They can keep their heaven. When I die, I’d sooner go to Middle-earth.”
― George R.R. Martin

“I think I’ll dismember the world and then I’ll dance in the wreckage.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes

“If you have enough book space, I don't want to talk to you.”
― Terry Pratchett

“And what would humans be without love?"
RARE, said Death.”
― Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

“Language is my whore, my mistress, my wife, my pen-friend, my check-out girl. Language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God, the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning sun when you pull from an old bookshelf a forgotten volume of erotic diaries; language is the faint scent of urine on a pair of boxer shorts, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party, a creak on the stair, a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, the warm wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl, cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.”
― Stephen Fry

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

“We have two lives... the life we learn with and the life we live after that. Suffering is what brings us towards happiness.”
― Bernard Malamud, The Natural

“It's interesting how young poets think of death while old fogies think of girls.”
― Bohumil Hrabal

“She seems so cool, so focused, so quiet, yet her eyes remain fixed upon the horizon. You think you know all there is to know about her immediately upon meeting her, but everything you think you know is wrong. Passion flows through her like a river of blood.

She only looked away for a moment, and the mask slipped, and you fell. All your tomorrows start here.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

“When we hold each other, in the darkness, it doesn't make the darkness go away. The bad things are still out there. The nightmares still walking. When we hold each other we feel not safe, but better. "It's all right" we whisper, "I'm here, I love you." and we lie: "I'll never leave you." For just a moment or two the darkness doesn't seem so bad.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman's Midnight Days

“She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“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 can betray them with your tongue. (from "Instructions")”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“The view changes from where you are standing.
Words can wound, and wounds can heal.
All of these things are true.”
― Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“Because,' she said, 'when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Anyone who believes what a cat tells him deserves all he gets.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it's much cheaper to buy somebody a book than it is to buy them the whole world!”
― Neil Gaiman

“I am the most miserable person who ever lived," he said... "You are young, and in love," said Primus. "Every young man in your position is the most miserable young man who ever lived.”
― Neil Gaiman, Stardust

“Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Sandman, Vol. 9: The Kindly Ones

“We...we could be friends.'

We COULD be rare specimens of an exotic breed of dancing African elephants, but we're not. At least, I'M not.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”
― Terry Pratchett

“It's not worth doing something unless someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren't doing it.”
― Terry Pratchett

“Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather

“Five exclamation marks, the sure sign of an insane mind.”
― Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man