Reflections, A Whirlwind Tour of Australia

This book should be compulsory reading for anyone writing fantasy. For good reasons.

Imagination doesn't just mean making things up. It means thinking things through, solving them or hoping to do so, and being just distant enough to be able to laugh at things that are normally painful.

The Opposite of Loneliness, Why We Care about Whales

I was, I admit, skeptical about this. Was it really that good or was it just the horrible tragedy lending meaning?

It's really that good. Marina had exceptional talent, as a writer I feel both inspired and intimidated by her. 'Why We Care about Whales' will stick with me forever.

Reflections

It's called Reflections. It's by Diana Wynne Jones but it's her voice and it gives me goosebumps and tears.

The Neil Gaiman Reader, chapter 9

Here's a very nice sum up of Gaiman from the end of this essay:

Gaiman celebrates the imagination. That's what his work is about, what gives it so much of its energy and a certain joy.

The Neil Gaiman Reader, chapter 8

Most times, reading a book about books dispels the magic. Sometimes it can enhance it.

I'm not sure about anyone doing a story autopsy, even Neil Gaiman, and then he beckons us closer to have a look at the carcass and shows us something we could never have seen otherwise.