The Endless

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Brief Lives (New York, 1994), Chapter 8, p. 16, Destruction says that:

he defines creation;
Death defines life;
Despair defines hope;
Desire defines hatred;
Destiny defines freedom;
Dream might define reality.

He does not list Delirium - she might define sanity?

Destruction of the old is necessary for creation of the new. He lists several kinds of transient creations:

empires;
cities;
poems;
people;
atoms;
worlds.

A Buddhist text is appropriate:

"Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world:
"A star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;
"A child's laugh, a phantasm, a dream."

Shakespeare: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on..."
Lewis Carroll: "Life, what is it but a dream?"