It is your differences that make you glorious.

It has been said that civilization is twenty-four hours and two meals away from barbarism.

I realized the other day that about the only author I genuinely read for pure pleasure is one of the worst authors in the world, a guy called Harry Stephen Keeler, a long dead American mystery writer. He was probably the greatest bad writer America ever produced.

It won't hurt, said her other father. Coraline knew that when grown-ups told you something wouldn't hurt it almost always did. She shook her head.

It's astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself into, if one works at it. And astonishing how much trouble one can get oneself out of, if one assumes that everything will, somehow or other, work out for the best.

Anyone who calls you "little lady" has already excluded you from the set of people worth listening to.

The old rules are crumbling and nobody knows what the new rules are...so make up your own rules.