There aren't any good guys, and there aren't any bad guys. There's just us. People. Doing our best to get by.

I watch my heart disappearing into her rosebud mouth. My Valentine's jest somehow seems less funny.

Shadow had heard too many people telling each other not to repress their feelings, to let their emotions out, let the pain go. Shadow thought there was a lot to be said for bottling up emotions. If you did it long enough and deep enough, he suspected, pretty soon you wouldn't feel anything at all.

Coraline shivered. She preferred her other mother to have a location: if she were nowhere, then she could be anywhere. And, after all, it is always easier to be afraid of something you cannot see.

What would be the fun in doing things you know are going to work?

Hearts may break, but hearts are the toughest of muscles, able to pump for a lifetime, seventy times a minute, and scarcely falter along the way. Even dreams, the most delicate and intangible of things, can prove remarkably difficult to kill.

It is going to take more than just a couple of good-hearted souls to raise this child. It will take a graveyard.