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
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.
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the transient nature of existence and the comforting illusion of permanence.
In this quote, Neil Gaiman contemplates the fleeting nature of life and the universe while expressing a desire to find solace in the illusion of permanence offered by the stars. He acknowledges that everything, including gods, mortals, and celestial bodies, is ephemeral, yet the act of pretending that some things endure brings comfort amidst the chaos of existence.
In practice
In a discussion about the nature of existence and the cosmos.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving.
The poison of skepticism becomes, like alcoholism, tuberculosis, and some other diseases, much more virulent in a hitherto virgin soil.
People assume that they perceive reality as it is, that our senses accurately record the outside world. Yet the science suggests that, in important ways, people experience reality not as it is, but as they expect it to be.
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury.
One cannot prescribe to anyone whether he should follow an ethic of absolute ends or an ethic of responsibility.
Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life's problems fall into place of their own accord.
All things are artificial, for nature is the art of God.
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