"...You're alive, Bod. That means you have infinite potential. You can do anything, make anything, dream anything. If you 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."
-- The Graveyard Book, "The Convocation," pg. 179. by Neil Gaiman
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I vowed to stop buying things after Cambodia (goods at the night market were so ridiculously cheap - will post much-overdue photos sometime...). But at the airport, waiting for our flight to Bangkok as I browsed the airport bookstore, I see this title peering at me, telling me "You've been wanting to read me, you've been waiting. And now that I've gotten the Newbery Medal, there is no excuse for you NOT to read me."
So I hand over $14, (well $15 because I got two more postcards...) and when I return to the waiting area near our gate my friends ask "You got another book?" And I smile and say yes, I open to the first page, of which I already knew the first line by heart, and I begin to read.
And now less than 3 days later, (I finished it two days ago) I am once again reminded of why Neil Gaiman is a master of words. Forget J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter. Neil does with the Graveyard Book what she did with Harry Potter one hundred times better in a fraction of the volumes written. He knows his readers aren't stupid, he doesn't spell everything out, and he constantly reminds me of how beautiful compassion, courage, and selflessness in beings are.
Thank you, Neil.
2 comments:
yeah... it's a great book
good choice for a quote.
are you a big neil gaiman fan?
and thanks :) that part really spoke out to me, along with many other passages.
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