In my house I have bookshelves, bookshelves in my living room (the cool kind that are big and have sliding glass doors), bookshelves in my kid's rooms and in our basement and in the home office. These shelves aren't filled with brick-a-brack, but instead are filled with actual books. Some are my wife's, some are my kid's, most are mine. I have books ranging from The Art of War to The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to books on running and books about cooking and a first edition of this, along with a ridiculous number of anthologies and short story collections and novels. Ridiculous! With authors (I'm not even going to list titles, because I'm sort of a completionist when it comes to writers I enjoy) ranging from Cormac McCarthy to John Green to Marilynne Robinson to A.S. King to Ann Patchett to Karen Russell to Kevin Wilson to Stephen King to Kelly Link and more... so many more. Part of that "more" is a whole lot of Neil Gaiman penned pages.
If you don't know who Gaiman is I urge you to look him up. In the meantime, here's the short version: The man changed the landscape of comic books and fantasy and science fiction and horror and other stuff that will melt your brain and he sustains himself by drinking liquid awesome (like ambrosia, only more fantastical) and... okay, I may have made up that last part (or not). Want more? He's a Sherlockian and a Whovian (penning one of The Eleventh Doctor's best adventures so far) and he keeps one of the most interesting blogs on the internet. Oh, and the adaptation of his book Coraline has ensured that I'll never buy either of my daughter's a Lalaloopsy doll, ever.
Neil Gaiman is the kind of person who says things and when you hear the words coming out of his mouth you can't help but be impressed or inspired or wish you could buy him a drink. But I digress, you shouldn't have to take my word for it, check out the below which includes an amazing short clip by Sally Franckowiak that blends kinetic typography with Gaiman's words for a quick dose of pick-me-up inspiration and a few pixels under that Neil Gaiman's entire commencement address to the 2012 graduating class of The University of the Arts - consider it a treat for the end of your work week (or if need be, something to get through the last couple days of it) or that little kick you need to get outside your box and think about ways to be more innovative and creative and awesome between nine and five and all the other hours of the day.
Header Photo Credit: mischiru via Compfight cc
