Fragile Things (2006) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Characters/People edit see section history

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• Mr. Alice: "Just a boy from Streatham who's done well for himself," Mr. Alice is an extraordinarily wealthy Englishman - so wealthy that no one has ever heard of him and he would never appear in a copy of Forbes.
• Smith: An employee of Mr. Alice.
• Zebediah T. Crawcrustle: member of the Epicurean Club. from "Sunbird"
• Jonathan: Add a description of this character.
• Jackie Newhouse
• Lestrade: Featured in the story "A Study in Emerald," and based on the character of the same name from the Sherlock Holmes series.
• Augustus Twofeathers Mccoy: from "Sunbird"
• Vic: from "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"
• Becky
• Macleod
• Mustapha Stroheim: from "Sunbird"
• Greta
• Susan
• Campbell
• Jennie
• Jane
• Vernet
• Nora
• Gaskell
• Douglas
• Paul
• Jamie
• Martyn
• Aladdin
• Harve
• Amelia
• Anderton
• Gordon
• Virginia Boote
• Miss Finch
• Thompson
• Alison
• Mary Poppins
• Sherlock Holmes: Appears in the first short story, "A Study in Emerald," and is for all intents and purposes the same character as created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
• Shadow: Same character from the full-length novel "American Gods" by Gaiman, makes an appearance in "Monarch in the Glen" as an addendum to "American Gods."

Quotes edit see section history

• “I have a feeling that we were meant to be together. That we have fought the good fight, side by side, in the past or in the future, I do not know. I am a rational man, but I have learned the value of a good companion, and from the moment I clapped my eyes on you, I trusted you as well as I do myself. Yes. I want you with me.”

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• “I think…that I would rather recollect a life misspent on fragile things than spent avoiding moral debt.”

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• There are so many fragile things, after all. People break so easily, and so do dreams and hearts.

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• As I write this now, it occurs to me that the peculiarity of most things we think of as fragile is how tough they truly are. There were tricks we did with eggs, as children, to show how they were, in reality, tiny load-bearing marble halls; while the beat of the wings of a butterfly in the right place, we are told, can create a hurricane across an ocean. Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.

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• “In a perfect perfect world you could fuck people without giving them a piece of your heart. And every glittering kiss and every touch of flesh is another shard of heart you’ll never see again.

  Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers

• I believe we owe it to each other to tell stories. It’s as close to a credo as I have or will, I suspect, ever get.

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• I like things to be story-shaped. Reality, however, is not story-shaped, and the eruptions of the odd into our lives are not story-shaped either. They do not end in entirely satisfactory ways. Recounting the strange is like telling one’s dreams: one can communicate the events of a dream but not the emotional content, the way that a dream can color one’s entire day.

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• “There are some as are what they are. And there are some as aren’t what they seem to be. And there are some as only seem to be what they seem to be.

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• If you were to try and pick him out of a group of boys, you’d be wrong. He’d be the other one. Over at the side. The one your eye slipped over.

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• Remember your name. Do not lose hope—what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.

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• The tower’s built of spit and spite, Without a sound, without a sight. The biter bit, the bitter bite. (It’s better to be out at night.)

  Highlighted by 10 Kindle customers

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• London
• Mandalay
• Scotland
• New Orleans
• America
• Egypt
• Suntown
• Cairo
• Norway
• Shoreditch
• Texas

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Neil Gaiman (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Hugo Award (2004: Best Short Story)
• Geffen Award (Finalist, 2009: Best Translated Fantasy Book)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 823.914

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › British › Contemporary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › British › Short Stories
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( G ) › Gaiman, Neil
• Books › Science Fiction & Fantasy › Authors, A-Z › ( G )
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Short Stories
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary