As sure as water's wet and days are long and a friend will always disappoint you in the end.

Words can wound, and wounds can heal.

You know that I love you." And despite herself, Coraline nodded. It was true. The other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew that she was a possession, nothing more. A tolerated pet, whose behavior was no longer amusing.

Now Coraline," said Miss Spink, "what's your name?" "Coraline," said Coraline. "And we don't know each other, do we?" Coraline looked at the thin young woman with black button eyes and shook her head slowly.

He wondered whether home was a thing that happened to a place after a while, or if it was something that you found in the end, if you simply walked and waited and willed it long enough.

My stuff gets published in some countries as fiction and in some countries as fantasy. It's just where they think it will do best in the bookshops.

One thing that's interesting to me is how we as humans seem to be losing our ability to stand still and be alone with our thoughts. If you want to, you have to arrange it now. You have to go off where there's no WiFi and leave your equipment behind, but still have some sort of GPS tracking to make sure you don't get lost or die.