“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.”

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

“Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”

“How do I know you'll keep your word?" asked Coraline."I swear it," said the other mother. "I swear it on my own mother's grave.""Does she have a grave?" asked Coraline."Oh yes," said the other moth...”

“It doth not hurt", whispered a faint voice, "She will take you life and all you are and all you care'st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She'll take your joy. And one day ...”

“The world seemed to shimmer a little at the edges.”

“But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?""Easy," said the cat. "Think of somebody walking around the world. You start out walking away from something and end up coming ba...”

“Mirrors,' she said, 'are never to be trusted.”

“We have eyes and we have nervesesWe have tails we have teethYou'll all get what you deservesesWhen we rise from underneath.”

“People couldn't become truly holy, he said, unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked.”

“Have you ever heard somebody sing some lyrics that you've never sung before, and you realize you've never sung the right words in that song? You hear them and all of a sudden you say to yourself, '...”

“If you feel so emptySo used up, so let downIf you feel so angrySo ripped off so stepped onYou're not the only oneRefusing to back downYou're not the only oneSo get up”

“Am I the reason you breatheOr am I the reason you cry?”