Skip to content

Books Quotes by Neil Gaiman

184 Books quotes by Neil Gaiman

All Books quotes Neil Gaiman’s page

Neil Gaiman remembers sorting his books alphabetically at age seven, showing how a personal shelf can feel like a tiny world. He says books don’t write themselves; they need research, thought, and a spell‑like use of words to create whole worlds for readers.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

“I was their first book.”

Image

“Read it first, then tell me it’s cool.”

Image

“I'll be with my books . ”

Image

Books were safer than other people anyway.

Image

“Rule number one: Don't fuck with librarians.”

Image

A book is a dream that you hold in your hands.

Image

I would read. I would explore

Image

I think of myself as a very lazy author.

Image

Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them.

Image

My ideal reader is me. And yes, my ideal reader comes with me and is forgiving.

Image

The search for the word gets no easier but nobody else is going to write your novel for you.

Image

“Books are special, books are the way we talk to generations that have not turned up yet.”

Image

Read the books you love, tell people about authors you like, and don’t worry about it.

Image

Books smell and feel better. They have that wonderful thingness of turning the pages.

Image

I think the short story is a very underrated art form. We know that novels deserve respect.

Image

“In the manner of one recognizing a line from a familiar poem in a strange book.”

Image

I'm never, I hope, stupid enough to believe that Twitter or blogging or any of this stuff is a substitute for actually…

Image

“Q: I want to be an author when I grow up. Am I insane?" Neil Gaiman: "Yes. Growing up is highly overrated.…

Image

Books make great gifts because they have whole worlds inside of them. And it's much cheaper to buy somebody a book than…

Image

I loved writing a book in which, in some ways, it's very, very classical, and in some ways I'm breaking lots of…

Image

Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother? I do. There are things not in your book. There are paths…

Image

“Growing up, I took so many cues from books. They taught me most of what I knew about what people did, about…

Image

Most people can start a short story or a novel. If you're a writer, you can finish them. Finish enough of them,…

Image

I'll agonize over sentences. Mostly because you're trying to create specific effects with sentences, and because there are a number of different…

Image

“At the best of times his face was unreadable. Now his face was a book written in a language long forgotten, in…

Image

“Books are the way that the dead communicate with us. The way that we learn lessons from those who are no longer…

Image

“I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if…

Image

I realized the other day that about the only author I genuinely read for pure pleasure is one of the worst authors…

Image

One word after another. That's the only way that novels get written and, short of elves coming in the night and turning…

Image

The best thing about doing a signing tour is that numbers become faces. I got to sign books for six or seven…

Image

I suspect that most authors don't really want criticism, not even constructive criticism. They want straight-out, unabashed, unashamed, fulsome, informed, naked praise,…

Image

This is a book for every fiddler who has realized halfway through playing an ancient Scottish air that the Ramones "I Wanna…

Image

“They were waiting for me in the books and in stories, after all, hiding inside the twenty six characters and a handful…

Image

“October knew, of course, that the action of turning a page, of ending a chapter or shutting a book, did not end…

Image

“I loved Tolkien and while I wished to have written his book, I had no desire at all to write like him.…

Image

“You wanna be the next Tolkien? Don't read big, tolkien-esque fantasies. TOLKIEN didn't read big, tolkien-esque fantasies. He read books on finnish…

Image

“Richard put away the Narnia books, convinced, sadly, that they were an allegory; that an author (whom he had trusted) had been…

Image

“YOU KNOW HOW IT IS. YOU PICK UP A BOOK, flip to the dedication, and find that, once again, the author has…

Image

“We need our children to get onto the reading ladder: anything that they enjoy reading will move them up, rung by rung,…

Image

Books are the way that we communicate with the dead. The way that we learn lessons from those who are no longer…

Image

Other authors on Books

More by Neil Gaiman

“People talk about books that write themselves, and it's a lie. Books don't write themselves. It takes thought and research and a backache and…

“Like all sentient beings, Fat Charlie had a weirdness quotient. For some days the needle had been over in the red, occasionally banging jerkily…

“Shadow crawled across the floor to the yellow foam-rubber pad and climbed onto it, pulling the thin blanket over himself, and closed his eyes,…

“[T]hey could not help being amused every time another little human believed itself the center of its world, as each of us does.”

So many things to see, people to do.

“Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.’ – Ben Franklin,”

You need more than a beginning if you're going to start a book. If all you have is a beginning, then once you've written…

You can tell the date of an old science fiction novel by every word on the page. Nothing dates harder and faster and more…

“The quickest way is sometimes the longest.”

“They were spells, spelled with words to make worlds, waiting for me, in the pages of books.”

Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.

What do stars do? They shine.

“What," asked Mr Croup, "do you want?" "What," asked the Marquis de Carabas, a little more rhetorically, "does anyone want?" "Dead things," suggested Mr…

You get on with your own life. Lettie gave it to you. You just have to grow up and try and be worth it.

“Eyes will not see you. Minds will not hold you. Where you are is nothing and nobody”