Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.

The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.

I will be brave, thought Coraline. No, I am brave.

Coraline shivered. She preferred her other mother to have a location: if she were nowhere, then she could be anywhere. And, after all, it is always easier to be afraid of something you cannot see.

I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?

You know I love you, ' said the other mother flatly.'You have a very funny way of showing it, ' said Coraline.

Mirrors, ' she said, 'are never to be trusted.

We...we could be friends.'We COULD be rare specimens of an exotic breed of dancing African elephants, but we're not. At least, I'M not.

Be wise. Be brave. Be tricky.

No, " said the cat. "Now, you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.

I've met talespinners before, Jake, and they're all cut more or less from the same cloth. They tell tales because they're afraid of life.

She didn't know if it was God. She wasn't really sure what to call it. She just knew she believe in unconditional love. And that was really all that mattered.

Something more terrible than a hell where one suffers may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored.

He [Abram] believes that the PRESENT is the only real thing and everything else is an illusiona distraction

The heart that once has been your shrine for other loves is too divine

Of all the cars I've owned, I'd like still to have the Ferrari, the Porsche, the Alfa, the Lancia, the MG-TCs and the Fiat 850, but mostly I miss my Mini Moke.

The greatest art is to sit, and wait, and let it come.

Just because it's true, doesn't mean it's believable or interesting.

The welfare state has always been judged by its good intentions, rather than its bad results.

Your biography is not your destiny, your decisions are.