She sat down on one of her grandmother's uncomfortable armchairs, and the cat sprang up into her lap and made itself comfortable. The light that came through the picture window was daylight, real golden late-afternoon daylight, not a white mist light. The sky was a robin's-egg blue, and Coraline could see trees and, beyond the trees, green hills, which faded on the horizon into purples and grays. The sky had never seemed so sky, the world had never seemed so world ... Nothing, she thought, had ever been so interesting.

Writing imaginative tales for the young is like sending coals to Newcastle. For coals.

I believe that anyone who says that sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly.

People can get involved in wonderfully creative ways that have nothing to do with you, but spark off things you begin with.

It's quiet. No cars. No birds. Nothing.' 'No radio waves,' said the Doctor. 'Not even Radio Four.' 'You can hear radio waves?' 'Of course not. Nobody can hear radio waves,' he said unconvincingly.

Never use five words if you can get away with one, eh? I've known dead men talk more than you do.

Why are we talking about this good and evil? They're just names for sides. We know that.