Recounting the strange is like telling one's dreams: one can communicate the events of a dream, but not the emotional content, the way that a dream can colour one's entire day.

When you start off, you have to deal with the problems of failure. You need to be thickskinned, to learn that not every project will survive.

Books were safer than other people anyway.

I sat in the dark and thought: There’s no big apocalypse. Just an endless procession of little ones.

Richard opened his hand, and the key stared up at him from his palm. "By my crooked teeth," asked Richard, remembering, "who am I?

The moment that you feel that just possibly you are walking down the street naked...that's the moment you may be starting to get it right.

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.