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" My theory on genre is that while there are people out there who believe that genre tells people what to read, actually I believe that genre exists as a marketing tool to tell you what to avoid. "

Neil Gaiman

Believe

You

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" I don't think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. "

" When I started out, there were a lot of things I knew I couldn't do, and a lot of things I only found out I couldn't do by going and doing it. And no-one was watching, and nobody cared. "

" The first author I remember being obsessed by, actually realizing 'I like the way he writes and I like the way he tells stories,' was C.S. Lewis and the 'Narnia' books. "

" My stuff gets published in some countries as fiction and in some countries as fantasy. It's just where they think it will do best in the bookshops. "

" I'm never, I hope, stupid enough to believe that Twitter or blogging or any of this stuff is a substitute for actually doing the work or writing a book. "

" The imagination is a muscle. If it is not exercised, it atrophies. "

Neil Gaiman

Imagination

Muscle

" I'm one of those writers who tends to be really good at making outlines and sticking to them. I'm very good at doing that, but I don't like it. It sort of takes a lot of the fun out. "

" I started blogging a decade ago because I like blogging. Writing's a kind of lonely thing to do, and I liked the idea of demystifying the process because I loved it as a kid and teenager and as somebody who wanted desperately to write. "

" The great thing about Batman and Superman, in truth, is that they are literally transcendent. They are better than most of the stories they are in. "

" I think of myself as a very lazy author. "

" You get ideas from daydreaming. You get ideas from being bored. You get ideas all the time. The only difference between writers and other people is we notice when we're doing it. "

" In the case of 'Ocean at the End of the Lane,' it's a book about helplessness. It's a book about family, it's a book about being 7 in a world of people who are bigger than you, and more dangerous, and stepping into territory that you don't entirely understand. "

" You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different. "

" For me, the glory of my first 25 years as a writer was I could put things off as long as I wanted. "

" When I was young, I was reading anything and anything I could lay my hands on. I was a veracious-to-the-point-of-insane reader. "

" Rock and roll stars have it much better than writers when they're on a tour. "

" I lost some time once. It's always in the last place you look for it. "

" A good writer should be able to write comedic work that made you laugh, and scary stuff that made you scared, and fantasy or science fiction that imbued you with a sense of wonder, and mainstream journalism that gave you clear and concise information in a way that you wanted it. "

" I was a scholarship minor public school day boy at Ardingly College and later Whitgift School. Then, straight into work as a journalist - a wonderful thing for a writer. "

" In many ways, it was much, much harder to get the first book contract. The hardest thing probably overall has been learning not to trust people, publicists and so forth, implicitly. "

" So I went out and bought myself a copy of the Writer and Artist Yearbook, bought lots of magazines and got on the phone and talked to editors about ideas for stories. Pretty soon I found myself hired to do interviews and articles and went off and did them. "

" As a kid, I would get my parents to drop me off at my local library on their way to work during the summer holidays, and I would walk home at night. For several years, I read the children's library until I finished the children's library. Then I moved into the adult library and slowly worked my way through them. "

" Also, I've already won all the awards. "

" One thing that I get from a lot of people with 'American Gods' is people saying that they would love some kind of glossary with a list of all the Gods and who they are, so that they can look them up. "

" 'American Gods' was designed to be, if not open-ended, at least a trilogy kind of shape, so there's definitely one more book, probably another couple of books there to get written. "

Neil Gaiman

Books

Kind

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

" A nice, easy place for freedom of speech to be eroded is comics, because comics are a natural target whenever an election comes up. "

" My guiltiest pleasure is Harry Stephen Keeler. He may have been the greatest bad writer America has ever produced. Or perhaps the worst great writer. I do not know. There are few faults you can accuse him of that he is not guilty of. But I love him. "

" Short stories are tiny windows into other worlds and other minds and dreams. They are journeys you can make to the far side of the universe and still be back in time for dinner. "

" 'Doctor Who' was the first mythology that I learned, before ever I ran into Greek or Roman or Egyptian mythologies. "