You know how she is when she gets an idea into her head. I mean, when one finally penetrates.
Desire describes Delirium, in SANDMAN #41: "Brief Lives:1"
It always rains on the unloved -- Wet dreams -- A fishing expedition -- She kisses wyverns (The Disneyland analogy) -- Dinner etiquette and chocolate lovers -- Desire swears by the first circle -- "Things are changing" -- What can possibly go wrong?
Title of SANDMAN #42: "Brief Lives:2"
"I mean, does this always happen when a girlfriend walks out on him?"
"Not at all. For example, after the Nada affair he razed the Dreaming. It was a bleak, lonely desert for centures. I remember the first flower that grew. The first time he smiled again...
Matthew and Lucien, in SANDMAN #42: "Brief Lives:2"
She was no longer Delight, and the blossoms had already begun to fall in her domain, becoming smudged and formless colours, and she had no one to talk to...
Delight becomes Delirium, in SANDMAN #42: "Brief Lives:2"
There are roughly seventy people walking the Earth, human to all appearances (and in a few cases, to all medical tests currently available), who were alive before the Earth had begun to congeal from gas and dust.
Some backstory, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
There are less than five hundred living humans who remember the human civilizations that predated the great lizards. (There were a few; fossil records are unreliable. Several of them lasted for millions of years.)
Some backstory, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
"But I did okay, didn't I? I mean I got, what, fifteen thousand years. That's pretty good, isn't it? I lived a pretty long time."
"You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less."
Bernie Capax and Death, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
The people who remember Atlantis -- Concerning mammoths, and falling walls -- Who controls transportation? -- Bored, she makes little frogs -- Truth Or Consequences, and other places -- Ancestral voices prophesying -- The dogs of art -- "When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly."
Title of SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
"What's the name of the word for the precise moment when you realize that you've actually forgotten how it felt to make love to somebody you really liked a long time ago."
"There isn't one."
"Oh. I thought maybe there was."
Delirium and Dream, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
"Can I have a name?"
"Don't you have one? ... If you don't have a name, what do people call you? I mean, do they just wave and smile, or jingle little silver bells or what?"
The receptionist and Delirium, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
Well, there are these two people here, Sir. The man says he drank wine with you somewhere called Babylon, and the lady... she's making little frogs.
The receptionist, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
"I'm not asking for art criticism, Barnabas. Merely for a few honest words of appreciation."
"Honestly? Well, the perspective's shot to hell, the colours could be better chosen, and the olive tree on the left looks like an overgrown stinging nettle."
Destruction and Barnabas, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
"Hmph. What the hell would you know? You're a dog."
"Did I ever say I wasn't?"
Destruction and Barnabas, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
"'The colours could be better chosen my foot.' Anyway -- I thought dogs were colour blind."
"Yeah? That's a coincidence. I mean, looking at that painting I thought you were colour blind."
Destruction and Barnabas, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
"You know, Barnabas, there are those who claim that for unquestioning respect and eternal devotion, all one needs is a dog."
"Hey, schmuck, devotion you've got. Perjury isn't in the job description."
Destruction and Barnabas, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
When I dream, sometimes I remember how to fly. You just lift one leg, then you lift the other leg, and you're not standing on anything, and you can fly.
Chloe Russell, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
"So what I want to know is, when I'm asleep, do I really remember how to fly? And forget how when I wake up? Or am I just dreaming I can fly?"
"When you dream, sometimes you remember. When you wake, you always forget."
"But that's not fair..."
"No."
Chloe and Dream, in SANDMAN #43: "Brief Lives:3"
The other side of the sky -- A bear and his shadow -- Departed secrets -- "Twinkle's a nice word. So's viridian." -- Three keys -- A treatise on optics -- The perils of smoking in bed.
Title of SANDMAN #44: "Brief Lives:4"
"Listen, I couldn't help overhearing you earlier. You said destiny was blind. Well, didn't you mean love? It's 'Love is blind'. That's the saying, isn't it?"
"The subject is one I find entirely lacking in interest."
Ruby and Dream, in SANDMAN #44: "Brief Lives:4"
Capax is dead. There is no doubt of that. There is nothing in his space but darkness and cold and silence.
Delirum checks on their quarry, in SANDMAN #44: "Brief Lives:4"
Etain of the Second Look: things moving fast. Strange impressions, difficult to locate. No longer where she was. Is she still even in this plane? Refuge. She's taken refuge somewhere. Delirium extends her flickering consciousness. An old power? Something obscuring her vision? Possibly.
Delirum checks on their quarry, in SANDMAN #44: "Brief Lives:4"
Do they think that they can impale the soul of it on their knives? That if they cut deep enough they can extract its dreams, naked and writhing and screaming, from its head? Reason is a flawed tool at best, my brother.
Dream, in SANDMAN #44: "Brief Lives:4"
The things we do to be loved -- Her hands do not go to the moon -- The driving instructor -- Tiffany watches I -- White knights and/or pond scum -- Are dalmatians flowers? -- Nancy displays her erudition -- Wham bam thank you ma'am -- Tiffany watches II.
Title of SANDMAN #45: "Brief Lives:5"
"You. Out of the car, and keep your hands where I can see them."
"You mean not make my hands go to the moon or anywhere?"
A state trooper and Delirium, in SANDMAN #45: "Brief Lives:5"
"Matthew. When you were a man, were you able to drive a motor vehicle?"
"Could I? Hey, I killed myself drunk driving, didn't I? I mean, the first time."
"I am not convinced that is any recommendation. However..."
Dream and Matthew, in SANDMAN #45: "Brief Lives:5"
She finds herself thinking once more about the women in the temple courtyard. There is a magic generated by money given for lust. Once on a time, she could use that magic, draw it to her. Create an aspect, take the power to herself. Now, she uses a shadow of it to survive. Even a little worship is better than nothing.
Ishtar, in SANDMAN #45: "Brief Lives:5"
I know how gods begin, Roger. We start as dreams. Then we walk out of dreams into the land. We are worshipped and loved, and take power to ourselves. And then one day there's no one left to worship us. And in the end, each little god and goddess takes its last journey back into dreams... and what comes after, not even we know.
Ishtar, in SANDMAN #45: "Brief Lives:5"
I'm going to dance now, I'm afraid.
Ishtar ends it all, in SANDMAN #45: "Brief Lives:5"
Life isn't pleasant, petrified -- The parting of the ways -- The trouble with mortals -- Dreamings of meeting or meetings of dreaming? -- The trouble with gods -- Mervyn sets him straight -- "Have you got anything with a happy ending?" -- Tempus frangit.
Title of SANDMAN #46: "Brief Lives:6"
"Ruby's dead?"
"Yes."
"Ah me. That's the trouble with mortals. They do that. Not to worry, eh?"
Dream and Pharamond, in SANDMAN #46: "Brief Lives:6"
At the edge of the desert is the City of Bubastis. The City is Bubastis as she never was, save in the dreams of a long-dead builder; and in the dreams of a blind child dead four thousand years, who had never seen the city she lived in all her short life; and in the dreams of the goddess of that place. The dreams of Bast.
Dream builds a dream city, in SANDMAN #46: "Brief Lives:6"
These are the ghosts of those of my folk who were embalmed, that they would live forever in the world beyond. But their physical forms were exhumed, over a hundred years ago, ground up and used to fertilize the land. Now they are only memories, slowly fading from the land and the world. Dreams of ghost cats, and cats of ghost dreams... sss. I know how they feel.
Bast, in SANDMAN #46: "Brief Lives:6"
Cooking considered as one of the fine arts -- "My envelope isn't any good anymore" -- Where all mazes meet -- The other side of the coin -- Life as a glass of bitter wine -- Cherries are counted, and a bargain is made -- An unlikely growth.
Title of SANDMAN #47: "Brief Lives:7"
Dream respects his brother, but the garden of Destiny disturbs him. It is usual, however, for the Endless to feel uncomfortable in each other's realms; only Death travels wheresoever she must, without misgiving.
From SANDMAN #47: "Brief Lives:7"
The garden of Destiny. Look behind you: shadow-plays of memory are forever being enacted, on paths you walked too long ago.
From SANDMAN #47: "Brief Lives:7"
Do you know why I stopped being Delight, my brother? I do. There are things not in your book. There are paths outside this garden. You would do well to remember that.
Delirum berates Destiny, in SANDMAN #47: "Brief Lives:7"
Journey's end -- Brains, a heart, a ride in a balloon -- Dinner -- Something new -- The illusion of permanence -- A wreath of bright stars -- Echoes of darkness -- Up. Out.
Title of SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8"
Ah, yes. You must have grown on a particularly penetrating and incisive branch of the family tree.
Barnabas to Delirium, in SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8"
I suppose I had vaguely hoped that you had changed, my brother. That you'd noticed that there were other people in the world. That you had begun to see people as other than things that dream, as creatures of stories.
Destruction to Dream, in SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8"
Destruction did not cease with my abandonment of my realm, no more than people would cease to dream should you abandon yours. Perhaps it's more uncontrolled, wilder. Perhaps not. But it's no longer anyone's responsibility.
Destruction, in SANDMAN #48: "Brief Lives:8"
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.
Destruction, in SANDMAN #48: "Journey's End"