Endless Quotes

This is me analyzing passages from Neil Gaimans Last book of the Sandman Series



Destiny of the Endless with his Book that holds the Universe

Here come the quotes
“The people in the city seem paper thin in the mist.
They believe they are dancing to the music of their lives…
But I think, like the puppets, each of us is pulled upon invisible strings, until the night comes, and we are put away.
I shiver, and hurry from the square, as the darkness of the city closes over me, like canal water or the grave.” (The Sandman; Endless Nights)

This is a story from the last book of the series The Sandman; Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman, that depicts each of the seven of the Endless family in an encounter with a mortal, be it human or another race before us, or in another universe. This story is about how a man meets and falls in love with Death, the one who comes for you when it is over, and the one who finishes everything at the end. The Man who meets Death realizes how feeble life is, and realizes how satisfying death can be. And even though we all live, we all know that this life is just for know, and truly we are all just waiting for Death to take our hands and lead us to whatever maybe next. This theme is a true Gaiman theme, Gaiman loves to bend life and death and have his own Gods and those above gods as the narrators of a story.

“Most people want things like a candle-flame, flickering, shifting. You, on the other hand want like a forest fire. I should warn you, getting what you want and being happy are two different things.” (The Sandman; Endless Nights)

Gaiman tries, in this series, to display the emotions and weaknesses that all beings posses. This example talks about the Endless sibling that is Desire, who controls all of our wants. It talks about how we never truly want anything, because we want so many things, that our individual desires are tiny! Gaiman also tries to prove that getting what we desire will not make us happy ever, for long. It will not satisfy the endless desire, (because desire is one of the siblings, desire will not die, which is why it is impossible to stay happy with what we want for long).

“It is all in this book. One day he will lay it down, when the book is done, and what comes after that is still unwritten. A page turns. Destiny continues to walk… He is holding a book. Inside the book is the Universe.” (The Sandman; Endless Nights)
Destiny is the Eldest of the Endless siblings, and in his stories he shows that every event is decided, but every event can change what happens next. This passage also shows that everything dies, not just humans and animals, but all gods and beings and the universe will one day collapse into non-being. When there is nothing more written in Destiny’s book then the world will end, but as the world is still going on, then Destiny is still reading his book that holds the Universe.

“It’s not from the future, you see […] No… or maybe it is. But just a bit of one of them. I mean, there are so many of them. Like wiggly worms, millions and billions and squillions of wiggly worms, all wiggling in different ways to get to the same place. And I know what that place is. It’s a nothing place.” (The Sandman; Endless Nights)
This is a quote from delirium about the possibilities of Destiny. Destiny seems to be an ongoing theme in Gaiman’s books because he likes to let his reader know that everything is destined, but what you do can change the destiny to which you are destined. He also believes in death of everything. Of no heaven and hell. Or of a heaven and hell that end once the universe ends. That’s why Delirium speaks of these futures as many unstable wiggly forms, because it can never be known which one your next decision will lead you to.


“He has no joy in his heart. His messages were heard.
She knows the music the fishes sing. She croons that music, sadly, knowing that once your fishes leave you, they can never come back.
He has peace in his soul. All his imaginings are knowledge. He will preach the silver. He will spread the gospel of the rainbow.” (The Sandman; Endless Nights)
This passage is from Delirium, she is the youngest of the eldest and the most temperamental one. Her charges are those that are out of their mind and each of us humans visit her realm several times in our lives, but we never know why. This particular passage talks of how losing your mind means you can never find it again, but it also shows that many revelations can be found through being delirious, even if a sane mind can never be achieved again. But for those people that don’t go mad often enough this passage warns that going out of your mind more often is so awe inspiring and knowledgeable that succumbing to madness can be very useful.