The Graveyard Book Quotes

“You're always you, and that don't change, and you're always changing, and there's nothing you can do about it.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Sleep my little baby-oh
Sleep until you waken
When you wake you'll see the world
If I'm not mistaken...

Kiss a lover
Dance a measure,
Find your name
And buried treasure...

Face your life
Its pain,
Its pleasure,
Leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you can change the world, the world will change. Potential. Once you're dead, it's gone. Over. You've made what you've made, dreamed your dream, written your name. You may be buried here, you may even walk. But that potential is finished.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Name the different kinds of people,’ said Miss Lupescu. ‘Now.’

Bod thought for a moment. ‘The living,’ he said. ‘Er. The dead.’ He stopped. Then, ‘... Cats?’ he offered, uncertainly.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Kiss a lover,
Dance a measure,
Find your name
And buried treasure.

Face your life,
It's pain,
It's pleasure,
Leave no path untaken.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort. And that is why we write.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“You can't trust other people. If it's important, you have to do it yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“You're brave. You are the bravest person I know, and you are my friend. I don't care if you are imaginary.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Bod said, 'I want to see life. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to leave a footprint on the sand of a desert island. I want to play football with people. I want,' he said, and then he paused and he thought. 'I want everything.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“The tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste out sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Things bloosom in their time. They bud and bloom, blossom and fade. Everything in its time.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Be hole, be dust, be dream, be wind/Be night, be dark, be wish, be mind,/Now slip, now slide, now move unseen,/Above, beneath, betwixt, between.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“If you dare nothing,
then when the day is over,
nothing is all you will have gained.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“You are obvious, boy. You are difficult to miss. If you came to me in company with a purple lion, a green elephant, and a scarlet unicorn astride which was the King of England in his Royal Robes, I do believe that it is you and you alone that people would stare at, dismissing the others as minor irrelevancies.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Really, he thought, if you couldn't trust a poet to offer sensible advice, who could you trust?”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Fear is contagious. You can catch it. Sometimes all it takes is for someone to say that they're scared for the fear to become real. Mo was terrified, and now Nick was too. ”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“I'll find you. Don't worry. Just be on your own and I'll find you.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Truly, life is wasted on the living, Nobody Owens. For one of us is too foolish to live, and it is not I.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Because there are mysteries. Because there are things that people are forbidden to speak about. Because there are things they do not remember.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“It is neither fair nor unfair, Nobody Owens. It simply is”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“And he waited. It was only for a few seconds, but it felt like a small forever.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“And there are always people who find their lives have become so unsupportable they believe the best thing they could do would be to hasten their transition to another plane of existence.'
'They kill themselves, you mean?' said Bod. [...]
'Indeed.'
'Does it work? Are they happier dead?'
'Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Nearly' only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“I think . . . I said things to Silas. He'll be angry.'

'If he didn't care about you, you couldn't upset him,' was all she said.”
― Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book