I think that pretty much every form of fiction (Iโd include fantasy, obviously) can actually be a real escape from places where you feel bad, and from bad places. It can be a safe place you go, like going on holiday, and it can be somewhere that, while youโve escaped, actually teaches you things you need to know when you go back, that gives you knowledge and armour and tools to change the bad place you were in. So no, theyโre not escapist. Theyโre escape.
Neil GaimanYou got to understand the god thing. Itโs not magic. Itโs about being you, but the you that people believe in. Itโs about being the concentrated, magnified, essence of you. Itโs about becoming thunder, or the power of a running horse, or wisdom. You take all the belief and become bigger, cooler, more than human. You crystallize.โ He paused. โAnd then one day they forget about you, and they donโt believe in you, and they donโt sacrifice, and they donโt care, and the next thing you know youโre running a three-card monte game on the corner of Broadway and Forty-third.
Neil GaimanGrowing up, I took so many cues from books. They taught me most of what I knew about what people did, about how to behave. They were my teachers and my advisers.
Neil GaimanSo that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.
Neil Gaiman