A short story is the ultimate close-up magic trick -- a couple of thousand words to take you around the universe or break your heart.
Neil GaimanRead
She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that beauty can be fierce and destructive, much like a forest fire.
Neil Gaiman's quote emphasizes a type of beauty that is wild, powerful, and potentially dangerous. It draws a parallel between conventional beauty and the awe-inspiring yet fearsome beauty of a forest fire, suggesting that beauty can evoke complex emotions, including both admiration and caution.
Themes
BeautyNatureForest FireNeil GaimanWild
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about unconventional beauty, one could reference this quote to highlight the complexity of attractive but dangerous qualities.
More from Neil Gaiman
All quotes →Jesus. Low-Key Lyesmith," said Shadow. and then he heard what he was saying and he understood. "Loki," he said. "Loki Lie-smith." "You're slow," said Loki, "but you get there in the end." And his lips twisted into a scarred smile and the embers danced in the shadows of his eyes.
Neil GaimanRead
As a teenager I wrote to R.A. Lafferty. And he responded, too, with letters that were like R.A. Lafferty short stories, filled with elliptical answers to straight questions and simple answers to complicated ones.
Neil GaimanRead
The important thing to understand about American history, wrote Mr. Ibis, in his leather-bound journal, is that it is fictional, a charcoal-sketched simplicity for the children, or the easily bored.
Neil GaimanRead
Nothing’s changed. You’ll go home. You’ll be bored. You’ll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You’re too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don’t even get your name right.
Neil GaimanRead
I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend.
Neil GaimanRead
Similar quotes
Today, we must realize that nature is revealed in the simplest meadow, wood lot, marsh, stream, or tidepool, as well as in the remote grandeur of our parks and wilderness areas.
Ansel AdamsRead
Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart.
Karel CapekRead
The shortage of fresh water is the major ecological problem of this moment.
Mikhail GorbachevRead
Dandelion wine. The words were summer on the tongue. The wine was summer caught and stoppered...sealed away for opening on a January day with snow falling fast and the sun unseen for weeks.
Ray BradburyRead
I have always tempered my killing with respect for the game pursued. I see the animal not only as a target, but as a living creature with more freedom than I will ever have. I take that life if I can, with regret as well as joy, and with the sure knowledge that nature's way of fang and claw and starvation are a far crueler fate than I bestow.
Fred BearRead
If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.
Mary OliverRead