He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring because yesterday has brought it.

That doesn't happen," she explained. "Stars fall. They don't go back up again." "You could be the first," he told her.

Stories are made up by people who make them up. If they work, they get retold. There's the magic of it.

You need more than a beginning if you're going to start a book. If all you have is a beginning, then once you've written that beginning, you have nowhere to go.

Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she met made any sense.

The best thing about writing fiction is that moment where the story catches fire and comes to life on the page, and suddenly it all makes sense and you know what it's about and why you're doing it and what these people are saying and doing, and you get to feel like both the creator and the audience. Everything is suddenly both obvious and surprising ("but of course that's why he was doing that, and that means that...") and it's magic and wonderful and strange.

M is for magic. All the letters are, if you put them together properly. You can make magic with them, and dreams, and, I hope, even a few surprises.