The boundaries of our country, sir? Why sir, on the north we are bounded by the Aurora Borealis, on the east we are bounded by the rising sun, on the south we are bounded by the procession of the Equi...
The ball of dark fur pressed itself into my chest, and I wished she was my kitten, and knew that she was not.
The abbot cleared his throat. You are all very stupid people, he told them graciously, and you do not know anything at all.
Television and cinema were all very well, but these stories happened to other people. The stories I found in books happened inside my head. I was, in some way, there.It's the magic of fiction: you tak...
Still, every little bit helps, as the old woman said when she pissed in the sea.
Spoons are excellent. Sort of like forks, only not as stabby.
Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.
She hoped it wasn't a spider. Spiders made Coraline intensely uncomfortable.
Shadow looked down at the girl on the table. What happened to her? he asked. Poor taste in boyfriends, said Jacquel. It’s not always fatal.
Perhaps it's a hard thing to say, but joy and sorrow are like milk and cookies.
People talk about books that write themselves, and it's a lie. Books don't write themselves. It takes thought and research and backache and notes and more time and more work than you'd believe.
People believe, thought Shadow. It's what people do. They believe, and then they do not take responsibility for their beliefs; they conjure things, and do not trust the conjuration. People populate th...
On the first day Coraline's family moved in, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible made a point of telling Coraline how dangerous the well was, and they warned her to be sure she kept away from it. So Coraline...
Oh ... My twitchy witchy girl I think you are so nice, I give you bowls of porridge And I give you bowls of ice-cream.
Nothin’ wrong with witchfinding. I’d like to be a witchfinder. It’s just, well, you’ve got to take it in turns. Today we’ll go out witchfinding, an’ tomorrow we could hide, an’ it’d be the witches’ tu...
Nobody will ever hurt her. She’ll just smile her faint vague wonderful smile and walk away.
Myths are compost. They begin as religions, the most deeply held of beliefs, or as the stories that accrete to religions as they grow.
Mr. Croup began to laugh. It sounded like a piece of blackboard being dragged over the nails of a wall of severed fingers.
Mind the gap!
Learning how to be strong, to feel her own emotions and not another's, had been hard; but once you learned the trick of it, you did not forget.