Write. Finish things. Get them published. Write something else while you're waiting for someone to publish the first thing.

A world in which there are monsters, and ghosts, and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels, and dreams and a world in which there is hope.

I am an academic," said Professor Mandalay, "and thus have no finely developed senses that would be comprehensible to anyone who has not ever needed to grade papers without actually reading the blessed things.

The fallen autumn leaves were slick beneath Bod's feet, and the mists blurred the edges of the world. Nothing was as clean-cut as he had thought it, a few minutes before.

It is said that scattered through Despair's domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag on your heart.

The imagination is a muscle. If it is not exercised, it atrophies.

But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?" "Easy," said the cat. "Think of somebody walking around the world. You start out walking away from something and end up coming back to it." "Small world," said Coraline. "It's big enough for her," said the cat. "spiders' webs only have to be large enough to catch flies." Coraline shivered.