She smiled at Coraline, as if it had been a very long time since she had smiled and she had almost, but not quite, forgotten how.

But standing in that hallway, it was all coming back to me. Memories were waiting at the edges of things, beckoning to me.

So, you figure they won't notice you're back?" sneered the marquis. "Just, 'oh look, there's another angel, here, grab a harp and on with the hosannas'?

Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.

They also held that the way to salvation was to give way to lust and temptation in all things. And no greater percentage of them turned up here than of any other religion. Amusing, isn't it?

I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested options.

That is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones.