Childhood memories are sometimes covered and obscured beneath the things that come later, like childhood toys forgotten at the bottom of a crammed adult closet, but they are never lost for good.

The past is always knocking at the door, trying to break through into today.

I was not happy as a child, although from time to time I was content. I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.

How old are you?" asked Door. Richard was pleased she had asked; he would never have dared. "As old as my tongue," said Hunter, primly, "and a little older than my teeth.

As for thinking time versus writing time, well, that's up to you. But - and I wish it were otherwise - books don't get written by thinking about them, they get written by writing them. And that's when you make discoveries about what you're writing. That's when you get the happy accidents.

How can you be happy in this world? You have a hole in your heart. You have a gateway inside you to lands beyond the world you know. They will call you, as you grow.

How big are souls anyway?" asked Coraline. The other mother sat down at the kitchen table and leaned against the back wall, saying nothing. She picked at her teeth with a long crimson-varnished fingernail, then she tapped the finger, gently, tap-tap-tap against the polished black surface of her black button eyes.