Planes Trains and Automobiles. My Triumphant return!

A QUICK NOTE FROM RRNN:

I have to apologize. I haven't maintained this blog for a very long time. The reason being I found that Internet Explorer somehow stopped being able to highlight text from Neil's blog. I couldn't get past this problem for a very long time until someone suggested that I try mozilla/firefox. I did, and it solved the problem, but by then I'd gotten out of the practice of keeping up on the wisdom of Neil. It's something I plan to correct in the near future. So stay tuned! Thanks!

Here's a collection of travel-themed quotes from Mr. Gaiman. Enjoy.

“The most exciting bit of yesterday was when the plane landed, and as soon as it stopped moving they turned the plane's electrics off. It was dark outside, and raining, and the passengers moved through the plane by the light of their mobile phones (not sure who had the idea first, but in a pitch-dark plane the phones gave enough light to see by). Climbing down, by the tail, I could smell burning and there were a number of airport firefighters pulling up, so I suspect the landing was much more exciting for the crew than for the passengers.
Anyway...”
-- Neil Gaiman 11/29/03

“I would like to go on record here as saying that I miss Concorde. I only flew it once, and that was only because of some stuff falling apart which meant I discovered I was going to have to use an obscene amount of air miles to cross the Atlantic, and when the lady on the other end of the phone said "Wow. For that many miles you might as well do it on Concorde" I took her up on it. And I know how wasteful of fuel it was, and was very aware while riding in it that I was in a thirty year old plane. But right now I could really do with a 3 hour trip across the Atlantic.)”
-- Neil Gaiman 04/08/06

“Set off on Sunday evening for the airport. Maddy and I flew to Amsterdam, then we waited in Amsterdam airport for a replacement plane to Venice (the one that we were meant to be travelling on having become whatever the air equivalent is of unseaworthy, due to an overeager baggage handler having rammed into the side of it. "It has a hole in the side," said the purser, in high Dutch dudgeon. "We shall get another plane.")”
-- Neil Gaiman 08/10/04

“Nearly didn't make it off the plane this morning at Gatwick. First the jetway didn't work, then the stairs they brought over for us to get off the plane with didn't go up high enough. I was just starting to worry that we'd be stuck there forever, and that within the week we'd be forced to eat the other passengers, and we were all eyeing each other to see who'd be first for some kind of improvised galley cookpot when they got the jetway working and we got off, grateful not to have been reduced to cannibalism.”
-- Neil Gaiman 07/03/06

“Up and awake and about to stumble out of the hotel and off to the airport, wondering suddenly why I'm not going to Washington by train as I could sleep on the train rather than negotiate more airport hell, but ours is not to wonder why, ours is just to blink uncomprehendingly at the daylight and do what the schedule says… Right. Airport awaits.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/29/06

“I was chatting to my friend Doctor Dan last night, about what I was doing today, and being glum about the six hours of driving that I have to do to get to and from Madison when I need to get an article finished. And Dan said "It's only 45 minutes in a plane," and offered to fly me down in his plane. (Dan flew me all over Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin when I was researching American Gods.) So I shall be having a small adventure on my way to Peter Straub and Gary Wolfe and the Orpheum. ”If you blog about this," said my assistant Lorraine, "Can you say something about how your assistant Lorraine took this news remarkably well, all things considered?" By which she means, I think, that she has decided, after some discussion, not to form a human shield by lying on the driveway in order to stop me doing something so utterly foolish, and instead will spend the rest of the afternoon somehow magically keeping the plane in the air. Lorraine is unconvinced by planes at the best of times, and suspects that one day someone will discover that heavier-than-air travel is impossible… And she's not too sure about lighter-than-air travel, if it comes to that.”
-- Neil Gaiman 10/22/06

“oops. they just called us to board. got to go.”
-- Neil Gaiman 09/30/06