How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
I opened my mouth to tell her that nothing could kill me, not now, but she said, "Not kill you. Destroy you. Dissolve you. You wouldn't die in here, nothing ever dies in here, but if you stayed here for too long, after a while just a little of you would exist everywhere, all spread out. And that's not a good thing. Never enough of you all together in one place, so there wouldn't be anything left that would think of itself as an 'I'. No point of view any longer, because you'd be an infinite sequence of views and of points…" (13.39)
This is where Gaiman kinda loses us. So he wouldn't be dead, but he wouldn't exist as a single entity anymore—he'd be infinite, instead of a nonentity. But couldn't that be a form of death as well?
Quote #8
"Um. I suppose. If I do. Have to die. Tonight," I started, haltingly, not sure where I was going. I was going to ask for something, I imagine—for them to say goodbye to my mummy and daddy, or to tell my sister that it wasn't fair that nothing bad ever happened to her: that her life was charmed and safe and protected, while I was forever stumbling into disaster. But nothing seemed right, and I was relieved when Ginnie interrupted me. (13.78)
Do you know what you would say if you were facing imminent death? It's kind of a toughie. You could do the standard tell-so-and-so-I-love-them, or bury-me-at-wounded-knee, but our favorite would be my-life-fortune's-under-the followed my nonsensical gibberish.
Quote #9
I did not want to die. More than that, I did not want to die as Ursula Monkton had died, beneath the rending talons and beaks of things that may not even have had legs or face. I did not want to die at all. Understand that. But I could not let everything be destroyed, when I had it in my power to stop the destruction. (14.49)
There aren't many people who actually desire death, and there are even less that would prefer a death like Ursula Monkton's, so the kid isn't all that unusual for feeling this way. But the fact that he makes a conscious decision to sacrifice himself for the good of his world despite knowing that he doesn't want to die makes him pretty darn courageous. Foolhardy, perhaps, and maybe a bit impulsive, but he's genuinely brave, that's for sure.