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Despair: Dreams. What are dreams? Dreams are nothing, my brother
Dream: Dreams are "nothing," sister? Without dreams, there could be no despair.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Three Septembers and a January
Delirium: He ought to be mine, but he isn't, is he? He's so sane... except about being emperor, of course...and I'm not even sure about. That.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Three Septembers and a January
Delirium: He's not mine... is he? His madness... His madness keeps him sane.
Dream: And do you think he is the only one, my sister?
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Three Septembers and a January
Joshua Abraham Norton: I am content to be what I am. What more than that could any man desire?
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Three Septembers and a January
Desire: How--How did you DO that, Dream? Norton lusts after women. I can FEEL it. He wants so BADLY... There was no way that he could say no. He had no protection. He should have been MINE!
Dream: He has his dignity, sister-brother. He is, after all, an emperor.
Desire: Don't give me that shit, Dream. He's no king. He's a crazy man with a cockeyed fantasy.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Three Septembers and a January
Despair: I hoped that you would come back to me, Joshua. But no. I would seem to have failed. You're a pitiful madman, a Tom O' Bedla, dying in the gutter in the rain. But you never despaired.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Three Septembers and a January
Death: You were Jewish once, weren't you, Joshua? Did you ever hear the story of the 36 Tzaddikim?
Joshua Abraham Norton: I...do not believe so.
Death: 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 kinds and queens of this world.
Joshua Abraham Norton: An odd legend, young lady. But I'm afraid I do not see its significance.
Death: No? I've met a lot of kinds, 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.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Three Septembers and a January
Johanna Constantine: Your son's head is valuable to you, and I am attached to mine. Indeed, hitherto we have been inseperable.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Thermidor
Gypsy woman: Value's in what people think. Not in what's real. Value's in dreams, boy.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Hunt
Lucien: Value's in the mind of the buyer, not the peddler.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Hunt
Grandfather: You shouldn't trust the storyteller; only trust the story.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Hunt
Lycius: He only gave the audience the finger, when they hissed at him. You didn't have to banish him. I've heard people be rude as shit to you, you didn't bat an eyelid.
Augustus Caesar: I am a man. I matter little. Pylades was disrespectful to Rome. He was lucky I didn't have him killed.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: August
Augustus Caesar: Many dreams come through the Gates of Ivory, Lycius, and they lie. A few dreams come from the Gates of Horn, and they speak to us truly.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: August
Lycius: Eh? Who could be greater than Jupiter the greatest and most powerful? Augustus Caesar: Hm. Firstly, Terminus, the god of boundaries. Jupiter must bow to him; boundaries are the most important of things, Lycius. And secondly... but I do not know who they are. They are whispered of in the inner mysteries: the seven, who are not prayed to, who are not gods, who were never men.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: August
Augustus Caesar: When I am a god I will no longer be scared.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: August
Augustus Caesar: ...As I said, the first time I met him was at Grandmother's funeral. I saw him next when I was sixteen. He was campaigning in Spain. He sent for me. I was so excited. In hindsight, the journey must have been a nightmare. But at the time it was an adventure--a boys' story. I was still convalescing from illness... It was a chapter of disasters. First we were shipwrecked, then I was forced to fight my way across country held by the enemy -- just to be with him. He was my uncle, you see. He was the greatest man in the world. He was my hero. And he was Caesar. I spent some time with him, in Spain. He was to have taken me on his next ecpedition; he planned to hav me always by his side. I went on to Apollonia, to wait for him, and it was there that I heard he had been assassinated, and had named me as his heir. I was eighteen, and I left that day for Rome, to avenge him.
Lycius: You must have loved him very much.
Augustus Caesar: Mm? No. I hated him.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: August
Augustus Caesar: Humanity. They follow leaders -- queens of kings, chiefs or emperors. We tell them what to do, and they do it. We know no more than they, but still, they follow us, blindly, as people lost in the catacombs would follow a child carrying a flaming torch.
Lycius: And what do you follow then, you leaders -- to make us follow you, and obey you?
Augustus Caesar: We follow our dreams.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: August
Dream: All gods begin in my realm, Caius Octavius. They walk your world for a span, and when they are old they return to my world, to die.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: August
Dream: I am no little Roman dream god, no god of rhyme and madness. I am myself.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: August
Rustichello: Of course! I should have known. I'm dreaming. That's what's happening, young Marco. I'm dreaming.
Marco Polo: So I'm dreaming too?
Rustichello: Of course not. You're just something in my dream.
Marco Polo: Oh. I don't feel like something in a dream.
Rustichello: Look. We can't both be dreaming, so I'm afraid it's definitely you. Well, not to worry. Dreams shouldn't worry.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Soft Places
Warlord: Sir? If we ever returned to the Hard Lands, there are some amongst us who believe that we would die of old age, crumblind to dust like the men in the tales. Others claims that we would return to the world on the day we left it, and live out the span of our lives -- And all the time we spent in this place would fade and vanish, like a dawn dream on waking that colors the day but cannot be touched or remembered. Which would it be, sir? Which would it be?
Fiddler's Green: I wish I knew.
Warlord: Aye. So do we, lord.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Soft Places
Marco Polo: Are they dreams, too?
Fiddler's Green: Oh, yes. After their fashion. But then, we are all dreams, in our fashion.
Rustichello: I'm not.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Soft Places
Fiddler's Green: You're in one of the soft places. There were more of them, in the olden days. I remember, when I was just a young vicinity, there were soft places everywhere. Well, not everywhere. But they were a sight more common than now. Even in your time they were more common than they are today. Sometimes I think that their loss is your fault.
Marco Polo: My fault?
Fiddler's Green: Yours, Hwen T'Sang's, Ibn Battuta's... the lot of you. The explorers, and the ones who came after you, who froze the world into rigid patterns.
Rustichello: You're talking as if we're dead, man. Dead and crumbled to dust.
Fiddler's Green: That's what you are. To me. You're history. Both of you. Seven hundred year's gone. Time at the edge of the Dreaming is softer than elsewhere, and here in the soft places it loops and whorls on itself. In the soft places where the border between dreams and reality is eroded, or has not yet formed... Time. It's like throwing a stone into a pool. It casts ripples. Hoom. That's where we are.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Soft Places
Marco Polo: Are you always so pale?
Dream: That depends on who's watching.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Soft Places
Orpheus: I have had a strange dream, father. I was floating on the sea, calling my wife's name. What does it mean?
Dream: Am I a hedge wizard, that I should interpret your dreams for you? Dreams are composed of many things, my son. Of images and hopes, of fears and memories. Memories of the past, and memories of the future...
Orpheus:You're saying I was dreaming of the future? Something that has not yet happened?
Dream: Perhaps.
Orpheus: I'm your son. Why won't you tell me what you know?
Dream: Because you are my son.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Song Of Orpheus (Chapter One)
Destiny: I greet you, Eurydice, on the day of your wedding.
Orpheus: Uncle? Won't you wish us well?
Destiny: I am Destiny. I am Potmos. I do not wish: I know. What must happen will happen. That is the way of it.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Song Of Orpheus (Chapter One)
Orpheus: My other uncles and aunts, Teleute. I wish they could also have stayed for the party.
Death: They had things to do, Orpheus.
Orpheus: But you stayed.
Death: I also have things to do, my nephew.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Song Of Orpheus (Chapter One)
Calliope: Oh, come on, Oneiros. Just this once. Dance with me.
Death: I do not dance. Not even with you, my wife.
Calliope: Not even on your son's wedding day?
Death: As I said: I do not dance.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Song Of Orpheus (Chapter One)
Dream: You should have gone to her funeral.
Orpheus: WHY?
Dream: To say goodbye.
Orpheus: I have not yet said goodbye to Eurydice.
Dream: You should. You are mortal: it is the mortal way. You attend the funeral, you big 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.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Song Of Orpheus (Chapter Two)
Destruction: Ohh, Orpheus, you're a strange child. I think you are more in love with the idea of your dead love than you ever were with the girl herself...
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Song Of Orpheus (Chapter Two)
Dream: Hello, Orpheus. You were unwish to seek favors of Death. But you have made your own errors. It was your own life. I have come to say goodbye. It seemed the proper thing to do. I have visited certain priests on this island, in their dreasm. They will find you, soon, and care for you. I will not see you again.
Orpheus: But father...
Dream: "Father"? Did you not say you were no longer my son?
Orpheus: Please. Father. Help me. Help me to die.
Dream: Your life is your own, Orpheus. Your death, likewise. Always, and forever, your own. Fare well. We shall not meet again.
Orpheus: Father! Come back! Please... father....
Orpheus watched as his father walked away; unable to turn his head, even had he wanted to. His father walked away, slowly, pace by pace, through the sand and foam. Orpheus watched through tear-stung eyes until he was out of sight. His father never even tried to look back.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Song Of Orpheus (Epilogue)
Matthew: Huh? Eve? What are you doing away from the cave?
Eve: Hm? Is there any rule that says I always have to dwell in nightmares?
Matthew: I don't know. I mean, you always have. As long as we've been together. And rules? Hey, this place is full of more rules than you could shake a stick at. Sometimes I think he makes them up as he goes along.
Eve: No. He made them a very long time ago. It's part of his nature. Making rules.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Parliament of Rooks
Matthew: You piss me off, Cain. And you sound just like Vincent Price.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Parliament of Rooks
Cain: A good mystery can last for ever. The mysterious corpse has a magic all its own. Nobody really cares who-done-it. They'll peck you to pieces if you tell them, little brother...
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: The Parliament of Rooks
Haroun Al Raschid: There is a tale they tell of a disherman who caught a jade bottle in his nets, who opened the bottle and released a Genie...
Dream: In the tale he talked the genie back into the bottle. But the Genie was foolish, and boastful, and lonely. I am none of these things. You have called me here, Haroun. It is unwise to summon what you cannot dismiss.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Ramadan
Haroun Al Raschid: I am Haroun Ibn Mohammed Ibn Abdallah Ibn Mohammed Ibn Ali Ben Abdullah Ibn Abbas, caliph of Baghdad. I propose to give you this city. My city. I submit that you purchase it from me: take it into dreams.
Dream: And in exchange?
Haroun Al Raschid: In exchange I want it never to die. To live forever.
Neil Gaiman, The Sandman - Fables & Reflections: Ramadan