There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.

Everybody who has ever read Sandman knows exactly what the Sandman looks like, which is more than anybody who has ever read The Catcher in the Rye can say about Holden Caufield.

I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck... I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.

Some of the things are the same no matter which world you're in, kid. One of 'em is this: The quickest way out of something is usually straight through it.

The ties of blood," said Spider, "are stronger than water." Water's not strong," objected Fat Charlie.

Recounting the strange is like telling one's dreams: one can communicate the events of a dream, but not the emotional content, the way that a dream can colour one's entire day.

Style is made up of whatever an author can't avoid doing.