written by Neil Gaiman

The most inspiring speech I ever encountered. Reading Neil Gaiman’s books is a life-lasting experience of one kind but after reading his speech he had given at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts in 2012 it felt similar to being struck by lightning (not that I would have any experience with lightning but you know what I mean..) and I will need a lot of time to recover. In the best way possible. I loved every word of it. I feel like there is still chance for us all. If you are any kind of an artist at all you should get your hands on this.

With the help of Chip Kidd, a graphic artist, the speech of Neil Gaiman is even more striking. The way this whole speech is printed is so pretty… I just want to marry this book.

“When I agreed to give this speech, I started trying to think what the best advice I’d been given over the years was. And it came from Stephen King twenty years ago, at the height of the success of Sandman. I was writing a comic that people loved and were taking seriously. King had liked Sandman and my novel with Terry Pratchett, Goog Omens, and he saw the madness, the long signing lines, all that, and his advice was this: This is really great. You should enjoy it. And I didn’t.”

You can watch Neil Gaiman say the whole speech h e r e.