If there's one thing that a study of history has taught us, it is that things can always get worse.

What should I believe? thought Shadow, and the voice came back to him from somewhere deep beneath the world, in a bass rumble: Believe everything.

I tend to think of fear and humour as very, very close together. And to be honest I think pornography completes the triangle, because they are things that to work need to evoke a certain reaction.

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 set off to explore for it, so that she knew where it was, to keep away from it properly.

The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.

I can get away before the storm hits. Away from a world in which opiates have become the religion of the masses.

For me, closing libraries is the equivalent of eating your seed corn to save a little money.