Neil Gaiman: Page 1

Roderick Burgess's waking dreams are of the power and the glory. And of death, of course. Especially death.

From SANDMAN #1: "Sleep of the Just"

Uh, Father, Magus. I've found something that may cast some light on our guest. In the Paginarum Fulvarum...

Alex Burgess, in SANDMAN #1: "Sleep of the Just"

It was a dark and stormy nightmare...

Dream, in SANDMAN #2: "Imperfect Hosts"

The process was slow at first, my lord. Things in the dreamworld began to transmute. I was aware of it in my library... Slowly, the words began to fade. Some time after you vanished, my books became bound volumes of blank paper. The next day the whole library was gone. I never found it again...

Lucien, in SANDMAN #2: "Imperfect Hosts"

"Atropos? No. Not now. You might as well call me the Morrigan!"

"She's right, my ducks. Might as well call us Tisiphone, Alecto, and Magaera -- and that takes us back, eh?"

"Might as well call us Diana, Mary, and Florence. Ha-ha! Uh, sorry."

The Three, in SANDMAN #2: "Imperfect Hosts"

Have you ever had one of those days when something just seems to be trying to tell you somebody?

John Constantine, in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

"Hullo London."

"Hullo John Constantine."

"How are you then, London?"

"All right. Full of people. Raining. You?"

Constantine's internal dialogue, in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

One thing I've learned. You can know anything. It's all there. You just have to find it.

John Constantine, in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

When I got back she was gone along with me stereo, the telly, me Silver Surfers -- any old junk she could convert to money. And she'd long since converted the money into junk. Stupid bitch. Sometimes I still miss her.

John Constantine, in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

It is never "only a dream", John Constantine. Here less than other places...

Dream, in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

... see the sun set in the hand of the man ...

Rachel, in SANDMAN #3: "Dream a Little Dream of Me"

I sprinkle sand into the waters of night. The grains burn as they fall, reminding me of another in times long passed away. I watched him even then as he fell, his face undefeated, his eyes still proud.

Dream, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

It is time for me to walk the abyss. Time to reclaim my own. I must talk to the Morningstar. I do not have high hopes for the meeting.

Dream, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

THere's one at the door, at the gate to damnation. Is it thief, thug or whore? There's one at the door, and there's room for one more till the end of Creation.

Squatterbloat, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

The wood of suicides has changed since my last visit to Hell. I remember it as a tiny grove. Now it resembles a forest.

Dream, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

Never trust a demon. He has a hundred motives for anything he does... Ninety-nine of them, at least, are malevolent.

Dream, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

One of you has my helm; my mask of pure dream. I crafted it myself, from the bones of a dead god.

Dream, in SANDMAN #4: "A Hope in Hell"

I thank you, last Martian. If you wish, you may dream of the City of Focative Mirrors...

Dream, in SANDMAN #5: "Passengers"

Mother said, if you are going to be a criminal, John, you are not going to bring shame on the family name. I had to change it. I called myself Destiny. Dee is for destiny...

John Dee, in SANDMAN #5: "Passengers"

Dee is for lots of things. Death. Dust. Darkness. Demons.

John Dee, in SANDMAN #5: "Passengers"

All Bette's stories have happy endings. That's because she knows where to stop. She's realized the real problem with stories -- if you keep them going long enough, they always end in death.

From SANDMAN #6: "24 Hours"

I will be a wise and tolerant monarch, dispensing justice fairly, and only setting nightmares to rip out the minds of the evil and wicked. Or just anybody I don't like.

John Dee, in SANDMAN #7: "Sound and Fury"

"It is a comfort in wretchedness to have companions in woe." (Marlowe. Faust.) Of course, he was talking about Hell. But it applies equally to Arkham.

Jonathan Crane, in SANDMAN #7: "Sound and Fury"

Oho, my sainted aunt, have I become a victim of brain fever, the curse of academia...?

Jonathan Crane, in SANDMAN #7: "Sound and Fury"

Looking back, the process of coming up with the Lord of Dreams seems less like an act of creation than one of sculpture: as if he were already waiting, grave and patient, inside a block of white marble, and all I needed to do was chip away everything that wasn't him.

From Neil Gaiman's afterword in the "Preludes and Nocturnes" TPB

We have seen stranger things in dreams; and fictions are merely frozen dreams, linked images with some semblance of structure. They are not to be trusted, no more than the people who create them.

From the introduction to the SANDMAN "The Doll's House" TPB

You are utterly the stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse for an anthropomorphic personification in this or any other plane!

Death berates Dream, in SANDMAN #8: "The Sound of Her Wings"

There is another version of the tale. That is the tale the women tell each other, in their private language that the men-children are not taught, and that the old men are too wise to learn. And in that version of the tale perhaps things happened differently. But then, that is a women's tale, and it is never told to men.

From SANDMAN #9: "Tales in the Sand"

You lot may die. I expect you will, 'cos you're stupid. Not me, though.

Hob Gadling, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune"

And in the meantime, I've started in a trade. Working with a friend of mine. It won't last. But it's a new trade. It's called printing. Don't need to be a guild member -- not yet. Never be a real demand for it, mind you. Hard work.

Hob Gadling, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune"

Her kind walk amidst the flotsam of lives they have sacrificed, for their own purposes, till friendless and alone they needs must make the final sacrifice.

Dream, on Lady Johanna Constantine, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune"

"Death's a capricious thing, innit?"

"Yes. Yes, she is."

Hob Gadling and Dream, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune"

I doubt I'm any wiser than I was five hundred years back. I'm older. I've been up, and been down, and been up again. Have I learned aught? I've learned from my mistakes, but I've had more time to commit more mistakes.

Hob Gadling, in SANDMAN #13: "Men of Good Fortune"

"If I hear another of your theological paradoxes, I'll scream. Frankly, today I don't care if God exists or not."

"I doubt He feels likewise, Miss Walker."

Rose Walker and Gilbert, in SANDMAN #14: "Collectors"