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
Libraries are the thin red line between civilization and barbarism.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Libraries play a crucial role in maintaining the cultural and intellectual standards of society.
Neil Gaiman's quote emphasizes the importance of libraries as essential institutions that provide access to knowledge, foster learning, and promote civil discourse. By describing libraries as the 'thin red line' between civilization and barbarism, Gaiman underscores their protective role in preserving culture and preventing societal decay, suggesting that without such spaces for learning and reflection, society could descend into ignorance and chaos.
Themes
LibrariesCivilizationKnowledgeEducationCulture
In practice
Example use cases
When discussing the importance of education in a speech to the community.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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