Gaiman Appreciation Week: The End

So we come to the end of our Gaiman Appreciation Week. For those who already are Gaiman fans we pray that we have made his books justice with our reviews.

For those who haven’t read his books yet, we hope we have managed to make you a little bit curious. And as an extra incentive, here are some of our favorite quotes from the Sandman:

“Desire, listen to me carefully. Remember this. We of the endless are the servants of the living— we are not their masters. We exist because they know, deep in their hearts, that we exist. “

– Dream, in SANDMAN #16: “Lost Hearts”

“The Endless? The Endless are merely patterns. The Endless are ideas. The Endless are wave functions. The Endless are repeating motifs. The Endless are echoes of darkness, and nothing more. We have no right to play with their lives, to order their dreams and their desires.”

– Destruction, in SANDMAN #48: “Brief Lives:8”

“People think dreams aren’t real just because they aren’t made of matter, of particles. Dreams are real. But they are made of viewpoints, of images, of memories and puns and lost hopes.”

– John Dee , in SANDMAN #6: “24 Hours”

“Dreams. What are Dreams? Dreams are nothing, my brother.” “Dreams are’nothing’, sister? Without dreams there could be no Despair.”

– Despair and Dream, in SANDMAN #31: “Three Septembers and a January”

“The million lords of hell stand arrayed about you. Tell us, why should we let you leave? You have no power here, for what power have dreams in hell? “

“You say that I have no power? Perhaps you speak truly. But you say that DREAMS have no power? Ask yourselves, all of you, what power would hell have if those imprisoned here could not dream of heaven? “

-Lucifer and Dream, in SANDMAN #4: “A Hope in Hell”

“I am anti-life, the beast of judgement. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds… of everything. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?”
“I am hope.”

– Choronzon and Dream, playing the oldest game, in SANDMAN #4: “A Hope inHell”

“They talk of me going around buying souls, like a fish wife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls.And how can anyone own a soul? No.They belong to themselves…they just hate to face up to it.”

– Lucifer, in SANDMAN #23: “Seasons of Mist: episode 2”

“I could never again be an angel… Innocence, once lost, can never be regained. “

-Lucifer, in SANDMAN #23: “Season of Mists: episode 2”

“Been there, Remiel. Done that, wore the tee-shirt, ate the burger, bought the original cast album, choreographed the legions of the damned and orchestrated the screaming…”

– Lucifer, in SANDMAN #60: “The Kindly Ones:4”

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

– Death to Dream, in SANDMAN #8: “The Sound of Her Wings”

“Anyway: I’m not blessed or merciful. I’m just me. I’ve got a job to do and I do it. Listen: even as we’re talking, I’m there for old and young, innocent and guilty, those who die together and those who die alone. I’m in cars and boats and planes, in hospitals and forests and abattoirs. For some folks death is a release and for others death is an abomination, a terrible thing.But in the end, I’m there for all of them.”

– Death, in SANDMAN #20: “Façade”

” When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the lastliving thing dies, my job is finished. I’ll put the chairs on tables, turnout the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.”

– Death, in SANDMAN #20: “Façade”

“Desire smells almost subliminally of summer peaches, and casts two shadows: one black and sharp-edged, the other translucent and forever wavering,like heat haze…Desire smiles in brief flashes, like sunlight glinting from a knife- edge. And there is much else that is knife-like about Desire… Never a possession, always the possessor, with skin as pale as smoke, and eyes tawny and sharp as yellow wine: Desire is everything you have ever wanted. Whoever you are. Whatever you are. Everything. “

– “SANDMAN #21: “Season of Mists”, episode 0

“Um, what’s the name of the word for things not being the same always? You know, I’m sure there is one. Isn’t there? There must be a word for it… the thing that lets you know time is happening. Is there a word?””Change.”

– Delirium and Dream, in SANDMAN #43: “Brief Lives:3”

“He was a very clever doggy. He said things like… like… “I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested options.”

– Delirium describes her dog Barnabas, in SANDMAN #63: “The Kindly Ones:7”

And a quote on Love:

“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” or “how very perceptive” 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. Nothing should be able to do that.Especially not love. I hate love. “

– Rose Walker, in SANDMAN #65: “The Kindly Ones:9”