"Just like you thieves, always taking things that don't belong to you. " -Damodar

Well that stirring quotation from the Dungeon and Dragons movie has always been one of its more endearing lines, and for some perverse reason help keep this barely-B movie in the ranks of Erin and my own nostalgia collection. In a round about way I have come to this point, and it really not what's on my mind. So I will continue backwards through this trip.

A more fitting, witty, and less obvious thing Damodar could have said, was better said by G. K. Chesterton:

Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it.

G. K. Chesterton, also said (and we are getting close to the beginning now):

Fairy Tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

That is a lesson, or thought I find truly endearing, and I think extends to more then just Fairy Tales, but much of fantasy literature. Or perhaps better said, fantasy stories are just another for of the fairy tale.

I came across this quotation in the introduction to Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors, an anthology of short stories, or perhaps modern fairy tales that I'm reading right now. (Or more accurately stated, started reading this morning.) Comically, when I went in search of the link to this book, I discovered that the book I thought I purchased, was not the one I intended to purchase. The result was similar, I wanted short stories by Niel Gaiman, and I got them, and now that I'm enjoying them, I will buy the other book as well. I imagine the same process would have occurred if I had purchased them in the other order, but at least this now explains the 1997 date at the end of the introduction, that had me rather baffled.

Anyways that was more or less all I had to say, its a great little anthology so far, and the variety of stories alluded to in the intro has me intrigued. While long ago Gaiman conquered the google search for Neil's, check it out: http://www.google.ca/search?q=neil.

Of the top 10 hits, #1 and #2 are his home page's, followed by another Neil, Neil Young at #3. #4 and #5 are the Wiki's for Neil Armstrong, and again Neil Young. I think even Gaiman would willingly relinquish #1 to Armstrong, oh the injustice. :)

Gaiman has quickly entered into my library in many a media form, I like his movies, I like his books, and I even bought his comics. I've steered clear of his children's books because I imagine them traumatizing future children, but I may recant and pick them up if I run out of fresh Neil to read.

I've come as far as I can this morning, and my train is arriving shortly, so I shall end this with something else pithy that Mr Chesterton has said, or wrote:

Wit is a sword; it is meant to make people feel the point as well as see it.

(Wow, I decided to put something there without knowing what, and I don't think I could have found something better and more conclusive if I had plucked mana from heaven, to bad I've fouled it all up with this post script.)