The Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables & Reflections

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

You attend the funeral, you bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.

It is sometimes a mistake to climb; it is always a mistake never even to make the attempt. If you do not climb, you will not fall. This is true. But is it that bad to fail, that hard to fall?

Some things are too big to be seen; some emotions are too huge to be felt.

Of course you don't believe in fairies. You're fifteen. You think I believed in fairies at fifteen? Took me until I was at least a hundred and forty. Hundred and fifty, maybe. Anyway, he wasn't a fairy. He was a librarian. All right?

You know what happens when you dream of falling? Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.

I must confess, I have always wondered what lay beyond life, my dear.Yeah, everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out.

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

Dreams are composed of many things, my son. Of images and hopes, of fears and memories. Memories of the past, and memories of the future...

If you do not climb, you will not fall. This is true. But is it that bad to fail, that hard to fall?

Trees there were, old as trees can be, huge and grasping with hearts black as sin. Strange trees that some said walked in the night.

Bodies are strange. Some people have real problems with the stuff that goes on inside them. You find out that inside someone you know there's just mucus and meat and slime and bone. They menstruate, salivate, defecate and cry. You know? Sometimes it can just kill the romance. You know that?

We write our names in the sand, and then the waves roll in and wash them away.

And all the time we spent in this place would fade and vanish, like a dawn dream on waking that colours the day but cannot be touched or remembered.

Value's in what people think. Not in what's real. Value's in dreams, boy.

You shouldn't trust the storyteller; only trust the story.

- The myths are dead. The gods are dead. The ghosts and ghouls and phantoms are dead. There is only the State, and the People.- No, Monsieur Robespierre. There is much more than that.

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

Listen, blood of my blood, although I'm a hard man to anger, and I love you deeply, if you interrupt me again so help me I'll rip out your throat with my teeth.

How long can it last? How long will people remember? I have seen the world, Dream King. I have ridden through the deserts, and seen the rocks and old walls and statues breathed up by the desert wind in the empty wastes of sand; and then the wind and the sand come up once more and the remnants of cities and palaces and gods vanish for another age of man, forgotten and unremembered...This is as good as it's going to be, isn't it?

I beg you, by these silent realms, to weave again the destiny of one who died too soon.For we the living will be yours one day and all we hope and feel and touch and dream, all we hold dear, will wither and be gone.For at the end, with pennies on our eyes, we die, and rot. And then, as hollow ghosts we'll dwell below: our last, our final home.

It is true that my rent is but 50 cents a week. It is true that my clothes were a gift from the city council. I exchange federal currency for my own, and thus I live. Many restaurants and eating houses now accept my scrip. This is my city, in my country. They treat me well here. I am the Emperor of the United States, Pain. I am content to be what I am. What more than that could any man desire?