I love in The Song of Orpheus, when Orpheus is playing for Churron (did I spell it right?) and he (Churron) starts to cry. Orpheus asks if something's wrong, and he says, "Don't stop."

I also love the part when the Hippogriff is talking to the Kindly Ones after they've slain the Griffin. He says (and I'm only quoting from memory so it may be off), "I am honor bound to warn you to stay on the path through the castle. You killed my friend, woman. Stray from the path."

There are lots of little emotional tidbits that I love throughout the series.

It'c Charon.

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The Will to Help and The Will to Use is what separates good people from bad. I think.

Thanks. I knew I was wrong, I just didn't know what the correct name was.

I like the part in the Kindly Ones where it describes a typical workweek for Morpheus; he's in a park somewhere Central Europe feeding the pigeons, until someone pointed out to him that a sign read, "Do not feed the pigeons." Heh.

I also like watching out for the various inhabitants of the Dreaming that show up in the background, like the cat and the mouse (with a feather in his hat) fencing in the Library at the end of Brief Lives, and the cats playing a card game on the stairs when Lyta Hall/the Furies go to confront Dream for the first time.

I absolutely have a part that I have very strong feelings for, and is not ....important.. in any way. At the end of preludes and nocturnes where dream accompanies death while she does her work, and death takes the life of the little baby. The panels where the reaction of the mother is shown is just... It felt like that was the first time I really understood the whole... thing about comics. About that comic. And a bit about life too.

Oh, and the bit at the wake where the panel first says "she gives you peace, she gives you meaning" and then it says "and she bids her brother goodbye". It felt like I could understand her character. Oh, and all of the scenes with nuala just.. touched me. Been there, done that (not literally of course...)I felt a... connection.

A couple off the top of my head...coincidentally both of these come from Preludes & Nocturnes.

The competition between Dream & Choronzon for his helm (see A Hope in Hell). It's quite similar to Merlin's duel with the witch in (Disney's) Sword & the Stone.

When Dream rescues Rose Walker (see Into the Night), Rose comments on Freud's interpretation that dreams of flying are really about having sex. Dream queries this remark, "What does it mean when you dream about having sex?"

Where Dream leaves Hell, and states that there would be no power in hell if the imprisoned couldn't dream of heaven.

In A Dream of a Thousand Cats, where the little cat crosses the watelands to enter the Dreaming, and is cut up and bleeding and loses her self, but still keeps on.

In August, where Augustus explains about the books of prophecy, and then, when Lycius asks, he looks sad and says, 'Terminus is the only god to whom Jupiter must bow.'

Rose Walker, writing about the mad things a paper's thickness away.

The death of Martin Tenbones, and then, later, Barbie writing 'Wanda' on the tombstone.

The trainsong/poem 'You can be be when I'm gone.'

Delirium's moments of sanity, when she stands up to Destiny, and when she comforts Dream as he falls apart.

The death of Orpheus.

The death of Dream.

I've just reread the whole series so... hmmmmmmmm...

In Season of Mists when he's just got back from Hell, and he's in his private quarters dressed in a raggedy t-shirt and jeans, with stubble on his chin. It's a brilliant bit of characterisation. For all he goes on about his responsibilities, he goes like a recluse when he gets a new one that he doesn't expect.

At the start of The Wake when they're all standing under the bridge at Necropolis Litharge.

In Death's story in Endless Nights when the narrator kicks the gate on the island. The narrative captions on that page are some of the best writing I've ever read, but the whole story is great.

OH! MOST OF ALL: the first time you ever see Dream's face. He's in the glass box looking out, and he's got this really angry expression, and he looks like a monster. And I just thought, 'God, he hasn't said a word in sixty years'. It's like when he puts on his mask - a reminder that he's not human.

And every time Death speaks.

I love the whole 'Pumpkin with a gun' moment.
I mean, with Merv's usual attitude you don't expect him to be so brave and loyal, and then look at what he does.
And the most amazing thing about this scene is that it's both touching AND funny.
At the same time. o_o

It's a minor, minor thing, but in Brief Lives, when Delirium's blowing bubbles in her hotel room, one of them is shaped like a Totoro! It's another small Gaiman-Miyazaki connection that for whatever reason makes me smile.

Limette I was talking to someone sometime last year who said he thought the entire Sandman series was leading up to that one point: 'I'm your worst nightmare: a pumpkin with a gun!' And he may be right. Something that's said a lot is that the series and everything that happens in it all contributes and builds up to the inevitability of Dream's death. But couldn't it also be said to be building up to the inevitability of a pumpkin with a gun?

I bought Fables and Reflections yesterday, and I've now read it twice, almost cover to cover! I can see why Ramadan is one of the most popular stories of the whole series (but not just because of the bit I'm about to mention).

When Haroun al-Rashid is walking through the room full of eggs, and the caption mentions " an egg larger than a man, the egg of the Rukh, the bird that nests on mountaintops and carries off bull elephants to feed its young" and the next panel shows an elephant's legs disappearing into the sky. That bit made me giggle.

you know, i really really thought i had replied to this thread...the one that imediatly comes to mind is in brief lives too.

Mister Farrell's reception:-

quote:

you don't want my name. trust me. you really don't. sometimes i don't want my my name, and i'm sort of used to it by now. it would really mess you up.

quote:

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  

poor marie!

The toast Hob Gadling makes in Seasons of Mists has always striked my imagination:

"To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due."

I sort of wish I thought of that!

i guess it's not much and it isn't really sandman. it's my favourite line that neil ever wrote. i can't quote it exactly but it's in, death: the high cost of living, death says somthing like this, there is no balance because everything will eventually die...

Like many, Brief Lives seems to be the source of my favourite moment:

When Delirium is talking to Destiny, and says (quoting from memory) "Because I know things that aren't written in your book".

I got a shiver down my spine. That realisation that even Delirium can be utterly terrifying when she needs to be. It's made all the more poignant by the way it's obviously very difficult for her to think in any kind of straight line like that.

I could list a thousand other wonderful moments... let's face, Sandman is basically a story constructed entirely out of wonderful moments.

Pretty much all of 'The Sound of Her Wings'; I've never wished for an older sister to look after me quite as much as after I read that.

Dream washing Orpheus's blood from his hands.

'He does not look back' when Dream walks away from Orpheus's, um, body-less head on the beach.

Nuala trying to get Dream's approval.

And in general, Dream's broodiness, Death's cuteness, the whole powerful-family dynamic.

As everyone else has noted, there are too many to choose from. So many images come to mind. The whole was even greater than the sum of its parts, and over time I think even more highly of the series than I could appreciate while I was reading it.

I also have to pass on this this amazing video I found on YouTube. If it doesn't make you feel like reading the series again, I don't know what will: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddlb98UpkGc

In "World's End" there was this gruesome note about the traditions and the practice of not washing up before a meal. It was told prior to the 'air burial'.

I've even heard that Petrefax was so popular as a motif that readers are clamoring for more.

All of it bothered me as so much zombies talk, and Dawn of the Dead reruns. Where was my appetite?

Then came another foray into Classical literature, and I was re-reading Jason, Medea, and the Golden Fleece on a capricious whim. And then he appeared, like classic rock, saying don't be afraid: Jason and Medea came upon a field of trees near a river in their quest. In those trees were soldiers laid out in mats, prepared for their 'air burial'.

I could only think back to World's End, and wonder if Neil could meld something more towards the orthodox greek....., or not.

Is anyone else familiar with the scene? Or heard anything about a continuation?

Lawrence, Vertigo's "Sandman Presents" did a miniseries about Petrefax ( linky to DC's Sandman Presents index)
I haven't read it so don't know how good it is, although I think the Sandman Presents spinoffs are generally good (I've only read love Street, and really like dit, keep meaning to chekc The Thessaliad but I'm always too broke).