"The Sandman": Memorable Quotes Quiz

Answer: Death

Death is the second-oldest of the Endless and she is the one responsible for everything dying. However, she takes the appearance of a perky Goth-girl and delivers some of the most compassionate and thoughtful lines in the series. She is arguably the most popular character of the series.

The quote comes from Sandman issue #8 "The Sound of Her Wings", which introduces Death as a character.

Answer: G. K. Chesterton

The Fiddler's Green is the dream of a pleasant, cozy afterlife for travellers (especially sailors). G. K. Chesterton was a favorite novelist of Neil Gaiman's when growing up, and he paid homage to the old master by portraying the Fiddler's Green as Chesterton in the graphic novel.

The quote comes from Sandman #14, "The Collectors", where Rose and Fiddler's Green end up in a very unusual convention.

Answer: Titania

You might have gotten the answer if you've read Shakespeare's play of the same name! The story describes Dream approaching Shakespeare to write two plays, and then shows the premiere of the first play with the actual fairy beings it describes in attendance. Although the faeries complain that the events in play actually didn't happen, the point remains that the dream of the story will soon be considered "reality".

Illustrated by famed artist Charles Vess, the issue won a World Fantasy Award for short fiction.

Answer: Ode to Autumn

Autumn, of course, is the season of mists. Keats' poem begins:

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness /
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun /
Conspiring with him how to load and bless /
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run"

Answer: Delirium

The youngest of the Endless, Delirium, appears to be a young girl with one blue and one green eye. Her clothes and hair constantly change color and shape, and she often speaks in riddles and incoherent ramblings. A typical quote by Delirium is :

"Have you ever spent days and days making up flavors of ice cream that no one's ever eaten before? Like chicken and telephone ice cream?...Green mouse ice cream was the worst. I didn't like that at all."

However, sometimes her rantings and ravings contain surprising and insightful nuggets of wisdom, which ends up influencing the plot.

Answer: Orpheus

Gaiman retells the famous myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in Sandman Special #1: "The Song of Orpheus". He places the myth within the Sandman universe by making Orpheus the son of Dream. In the process, he humanizes the mythic characters, adding even greater pathos when the inevitable occurs.

In this scene, after Orpheus makes his defiant statement, Dream counsels him:

"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."

Answer: lifetime

Death says this to Bernie, a man who has managed to live for 15,000 years before finally dying. Although he is pleased to have evaded her for so long, Death reminds him (and the readers) that it is the quality of the life, not the quantity, that matters.

Answer: Teddy Roosevelt

President Teddy Roosevelt, despite being a great conservationist, also greatly enjoyed hunting animals. He participated in a great safari soon after he finished his presidency, and ended up killing over 10,000 animals to be shipped back to America for mounting and stuffing.

In the graphic novel, Prez Rickard continues:

"The feet of the great walk over that tiger skin each day. It listens to policy being formed, and secrets being spoken. Now do you think that tiger would rather be dead and in the seat of power, or alive, and walking the jungle of India, sniffing the wind for the scent of game?"

Food for thought about the importance of ambition versus freedom.

Answer: Horrible

A surprising conclusion! Rose proceeds to explain:

"It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. ... They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love."

One may or may not agree with her, but it's a passage that definitely sticks in the mind!

Answer: The Tempest

The themes of sacrifice and retirement are very prominent in Shakespeare's "The Tempest". Often seen as the very last play Shakespeare wrote, this enigmatic romance is commissioned by Dream to tell his story using the character of Prospero, the magician who lays down his staff at the end of the play. And of course, Gaiman ends the series with the famous speech of Prospero:

"Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

A most appropriate way to end a series about the Master of Dreams, the Sandman!