Everything he had ever done that had been better left undone. Every lie he had told — told to himself, or told to others. Every little hurt, and all the great hurts. Each one was pulled out of him, detail by detail, inch by inch. The demon stripped away the cover of forgetfulness, stripped everything down to truth, and it hurt more than anything.

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.

Sometimes I wish that just solving the plot problems was enough. And then elves would go and do all the actual work moving the words around.

I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled.

Nice' in a bodyguard is about as useful as the ability to regurgitate whole lobsters.

Stories are like spiders, with all they long legs, and stories are like spiderwebs, which man gets himself all tangled up in but which look pretty when you see them under a leaf in the morning dew, and in the elegant way that they connect to one another, each to each.

In Hollywood, lying is something that people do like breathing.