The Sandman (comic book)

"I hesitate to tell you this, Sam, but there are certain individuals who have accused me of. Mm. Well, being mad." "You... shock me, Your Majesty."

"His madness... his madness keeps him sane." "And do you think he is the only one, my sister?"

"Desire? You disappoint me. This evening's display: bringing back a dead man to offer Norton the pleasures of the world. It was not very subtle."

"They say that the world rests on the backs of 36 living saints—36 unselfish men and women. Because of them the world continues to exist. They are the secret kings and queens of this world."

"I've met a lot of kings, and emperors and heads of state in my time, Joshua. I've met them all. And you know something? I think I liked you best."

"I must confess, I have always wondered what lay beyond life, my dear." "Yeah, everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out."

"The young man's mother had died bringing him into the world; she gave him life, a small wooden finger-ring, and the name Vassily. There have been worse legacies."

"Of course you don't believe in fairies. You're fifteen. You think I believed in fairies at fifteen? Took me until I was at least a hundred and forty. Hundred and fifty, maybe. Anyway, he wasn't a fairy. He was a librarian. All right?"

"Listen, blood of my blood. Although I'm a hard man to anger, and I love you deeply, if you interrupt me again so help me I'll rip out your throat with my teeth."

"You shouldn't trust the storyteller; only trust the story."

"Do you know how long it's been since I mislaid a book? Well, let's just say the continents weren't in their current shapes, not that that means anything to you."

"Any view of things that is not strange is false."

"Forewarned is seldom forearmed. Not even in the shifting zones."

"You look terrible. White as the man in the moon. Are you always that pale?" "That depends on who's watching."

"There are really patterns. It was a revelation, of a kind. Dreams and sand and stories. Deserts and cities and time."

"You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live."

"Herakles was full of it. He just got dead drunk for a couple of weeks in Phrygia and told everyone he'd been to the land of the dead."

"I don't need to know the future. When the future's over, then it's me..."

"Thou hast made the Furies cry, Orpheus. They will never forgive you for that."

"Abel, the younger brother, had lots of sheep, and he had given the land's creator a sheep as present. Cain, who was the older, grew fruit and vegetables, and he'd given the land's creator some of them. But the creator liked the sheep best, because it was all funny and fluffy and white—" "Because it was warm, steaming meat. It was a bleeding sacrifice, you bloody idiot!"

"There was also in that room the Other Egg of the Phoenix. (For the Phoenix when its time comes to die lays two eggs, one black, one white: From the white egg hatches the Phoenix-bird itself, when its time is come, but what hatches from the black egg no one knows.)"

"You have called me here, Haroun. It is unwise to summon what you cannot dismiss."

"He prays as he walks (cursing his one weak leg the while), prays to Allah (who made all things) that somewhere, in the darkness of dreams, abides the other Baghdad (that can never die), and the other egg of the Phoenix. But Allah alone knows all."

"Change. Change. Change. Change... change. Change. Chaaaange. When you say words a lot they don't mean anything. Or maybe they don't mean anything anyway, and we just think they do."

"In her world there are so many windows. Each opening shows her an existence that's fallen to her—some only for moments, others for lifetimes."

"Some things are changeless. People love, and die, they dream, destroy, despair, go mad. They fulfill their destinies, live out the course of their lives. We fulfill our function, as they fulfill theirs... that will not change."

"I mean, does this always happen when a girlfriend walks out on him?" "Not at all. For example, after the Nada affair he razed the Dreaming. It was a bleak, lonely desert for centuries. I remember the first flower that grew. The first time he smiled again..."

"There are roughly seventy people walking the Earth, human to all appearances (and in a few cases, to all medical tests currently available), who were alive before the Earth had begun to congeal from gas and dust."

"You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less."

"What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago?" "There isn't one." "Oh. I thought maybe there was."

"Is there a word for forgetting the name of someone when you want to introduce them to someone else at the same time you realize you've forgotten the name of the person you're introducing them to as well?" "No."

"What the hell would you know? You're a dog." "Did I ever say I wasn't?"

"You know, Barnabas, there are those who claim that for unquestioning respect and eternal devotion, all one needs is a dog." "Hey, schmuck, devotion you've got. Perjury isn't in the job description."

"That person. Farrel-mond. What was he?" "He used to be a god. When we last met, in Babylon, his sacrifices were dwindling, and many of his shrines had already been abandoned. I merely suggested that he find another occupation." "Oh. I didn't know you could stop being a god." "You can stop being anything."

"When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly. You just lift one leg, then you lift the other leg, and you're not standing on anything, and you can fly."

"So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?" "When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget." "But that's not fair..." "No."

"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."

"Listen. I couldn't help overhearing you earlier. You said destiny was blind. Well, didn't you mean love? It's "love is blind". That's the saying, isn't it?"

"I know how gods begin, Roger. We start as dreams. Then we walk out of dreams into the land. We are worshipped and loved, and take power to ourselves. And then one day there's no one left to worship us. And in the end, each little god and goddess takes its last journey back into dreams... and what comes after, not even we know."

"I'm going to dance now, I'm afraid."

"The garden of Destiny. Look behind you: shadow-plays of memory are forever being enacted, on paths you walked too long ago."

"Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother? I do. There are things not in your book. There are paths outside this garden. You would do well to remember that."

"Destruction did not cease with my abandonment of my realm, no more than people would cease to dream should you abandon yours. Perhaps it's more uncontrolled, wilder. Perhaps not. But it's no longer anyone's responsibility."

"I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend... I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend."

"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."

"Even our existences are brief and bounded. None of us will last longer than this version of the universe." "Except our sister." "So we suppose."

"What's done can't be undone. Or very rarely. And definitely not this time."

"You cannot seek Destruction and return unscathed." "Delirium has." "Delirium has been scathed enough in her time."

"You know, I swore an oath once. I swore I would make him spill family blood. And now he has. I should be triumphant." "It was not your doing." "True. But it was what I wanted." "So. Are you happy?" "No. I'm scared." "So am I."

"I don't really like driving in snow. There's something about the motion of the falling snowflakes that hurts my eye, throws my sense of balance all to hell. It's like tumbling into a field of stars."