The Sandman Quotes (1989) — Comics

Comic illustration: a young man in a billowing shirt raises his arms in a moonlit stone circle before a winged fairy court, as a lute player and a gowned woman perform and a pale, dark-coated figure watches from the shadows. — Original artwork

Things need not have happened to be true. Tales and dreams are the shadow-truths that will endure when mere facts are dust and ashes, and forgot.

Dream

Comic illustration: a dark-haired woman in a long black dress kneels beside an elderly man in a worn coat among rubble and broken pews of a ruined chapel, an autumn sunset glowing through the broken window behind them. — Original artwork

You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less.

Death

A gaunt figure in a long black cloak stands on a cracked plain of ash in Hell, facing a vast demon that keeps breaking into shifting shapes. — Original artwork

I am hope.

Dream

What power would Hell have if those here imprisoned were not able to dream of Heaven?

Dream

But the price of getting what you want, is getting what once you wanted.

Dream

Todd speaks to Janet beneath rehearsal lights, with a moonlit precipice evoked behind the stage. — Original artwork

Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

Todd Faber

It is sometimes a mistake to climb. It is always a mistake never even to make the attempt.

Dream

Barbie watches the landscape through a bus window among quiet fellow travellers. — Original artwork

Everybody has a secret world inside of them. I mean everybody.

Barbie’s narration, The Sandman #37 (1992)

Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up.

Rose Walker

A grandfather tells his granddaughter a story beside a lamp and a dark window reflecting a forest. — Original artwork

You shouldn't trust the storyteller. Only trust the story.

The grandfather, The Sandman, #38 (1992)

Hob raises a glass to Dream across an old bottle of wine in a warmly lit room. — Original artwork

To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due.

Hob Gadling

When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting. When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.

Death

That which is dreamed can never be lost, can never be undreamed.

Master Li

Two travellers share a desert tale beside a fire as a distant city shimmers among the dunes. — Original artwork

For love is no part of the dream-world. Love belongs to Desire, and Desire is always cruel.

Storyteller’s narration, The Sandman #9 (1989)

Delirium and Dream pause on a wet city street beside an oddly coloured window reflection. — Original artwork

What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago? / There isn't one. / Oh. I thought maybe there was.

Delirium / Dream, The Sandman #43 (1992)

You are utterly the stupidest, most self-centered, appallingest excuse for an anthropomorphic personification on this or any other plane!

Death

I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. … They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.

Rose Walker