Sandman VII: Brief Lives

These quotes are taken from Neil Gaiman's the Sandman, a most excellent comic book.
He owns the words.


Sandman: Brief Lives (VII)

Delirium:
(about Delirium) “She stares at the world with two mismatched eyes: one emerald green, the other pale blue through which silver flecks flicker and swim like a shoal of tiny fish.”
(about Delirium) “She was no longer Delight; and the blossoms had already begun to fall in her domain, becoming smudged and formless colors, and she had no one to talk to . . .”
I feel like . . . I don’t know . . . someplace nobody ever goes anymore.
Okay, then, you have to promise if I say something you don’t like you won’t do that voice that sounds like people with wet and bubbly stuff in their lungs buried under the ground being crushed to death by giant worms talking.
Oh, look! They’ve all got little eyebrows. First of all I bite their little hands off, one two three . . . then I bite their little noses . . .
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?
I think you’re very nice. I think twinkle’s a nice word. So’s viridian. I met a lady once who had an imaginary fish.
Ruby’s dead? [Morpheus: Yes.] Oh. . . . oh wow. That means I get to drive.
Someone once brought me a flower, clandestinely. That means I don’t know who it was. And I never saw the flower, either. Maybe they never brought it at all. I don’t know.
(about Delirium’s realm) a woman stands with doves on her shoulders. the doves are scorpions. the woman is a small pool of ice-cream, melting on a sidewalk on a hot summer’s day . . . ten days without sleep lurches and bubbles towards him and through him and away . . . the sour clinical smell of a hospital, which brings with it beds and surgeons and saline drips . . . dark rooms filled with formless people who breathe bitter shrouds . . . unripe mind apples tumble screaming through the sky, and the stars gasp in brief flashes of pain and time . . .
What’s a false move? Is it very different from a real one?

Merv:
Guys like me, ordinary joes, we just shrug our shoulders, say, hey, that’s life, flick it if you can’t take a joke. Not him. Oh no. he’s gotta be the tragic figure standing out in the rain, mournin’ the loss of his beloved. So down comes the rain, right on cue.

Pharamond’s receptionist:
Well, there are these two people here, sir. The man says he drank wine with you somewhere called Babylon. And the lady . . . she’s making little frogs.

Chloe-mouse:
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. . . . [Morpheus: Perhaps.] And then when I wake up, I can’t remember how to do it anymore. [Morpheus: So?] 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? [Morpheus: When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget.] But that’s not fair . . . [Morpheus: No.]

Morpheus:
Do they think they can impale the soul of it on their knives? That if they cut deep enough they can extract its dreams, naked and writhing and screaming, from its head? Reason is a flawed tool at best, my brother.

The Corinthian:
Eyes? I see no eyes.

Destruction:
To look upon a basilisk/ is really never worth the risk/ To gaze upon a cockatrice/ is permanent and never nice./ For it can never be denied/ life isn’t pleasant, petrified.

(Narrator):
There are today less than a thousand who walked the streets of Atlantis (the first Atlantis. The other lands that bore that name were shadows, echo-Atlantises, myth lands, and they came later.)
All labyrinths are one labyrinth. All mazes meet in the center. There is a portion of space that all labyrinths share, a space common to every place in which paths fork and join and diverge once more. . . . an old red sun hangs in the sky. This is not Earth. This is not now. This is Destiny’s garden, that is a place to itself, and exists in its own time. Paths connect and diverge in this place. Dream respects his brother, but the garden of Destiny disturbs him. It is usual, however, for the Endless to feel uncomfortable in each other’s realms; only Death travels wheresoever she must, without misgiving. The garden of Destiny. Look behind you: shadow-plays of memory are forever being enacted, on paths you walked too long ago.
There is blood on the throne of the Dream King. The Corinthian stands behind it, trembling – red, wet tears dribbling from his mouths. The Dream King looks up, slowly, and speaks to him. He is dressed entirely in white.
There are two gates at the entrance to the true Dreaming. The Lord of Dreams set them there himself, a long time ago. There were three gods, or so the tales went, who wished to rule in Dream’s domain; who planned to feed on dreams and take all the power of dreams for their own. From the skull and from the spine of the oldest, Dream created his helm. From the tusks of the middle god, he carved a gate through which the commonality of dreams could travel; all the falsehoods and hopes and fears. And from the horns of the youngest, he carved a gate that he reserved for true dreams. This because he had some little regard for her, and had, perhaps, in some small measure, regretted the course of action he had found necessary. But all this was long ago; and the truth of it all has not ever been told on this world.

Andros:
It is going to be a beautiful day.


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