It seemed to Coraline that it was crouching, and staring down at her, as if it were not really a house but only the idea of a house—and the person who had had the idea, she was certain, was not a good person.

Parameters are the things you bounce off to create art.

Take one, and you cannot take the other. But neither path is safe. Which way would you walk — the way of hard truths or the way of fine lies?

Really, he thought, if you couldn't trust a poet to offer sensible advice, who could you trust?

What do I do now?” “I don’t know. Fade away, perhaps. Or find another role.

Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down.

There are a hundred things she has tried to chase away the things she won't remember and that she can't even let herself think about because that's when the birds scream and the worms crawl and somewhere in her mind it's always raining a slow endless drizzle.