I tweet, therefore my entire life has shrunk to 140 character chunks of instant event and predigested gnomic wisdom. And swearing.
I took delight in hurling books across the room if I knew I would not be reading the second chapter. Then I’d go and pick them up again, because they are books, after all, and we are not savages.
Television and cinema were all very well, but these stories happened to other people. The stories I found in books happened inside my head. I was, in some way, there. It’s the magic of fiction: you take the words and you build them into worlds.
Words can wound, and wounds can heal.
If there’s one thing that a study of history has taught us, it is that things can always get worse.
M is for magic. All the letters are, if you put them together properly. You can make magic with them, and dreams, and, I hope, even a few surprises...
It is good for children to find themselves facing the elements of a fairy tale – they are well-equipped to deal with these.
Chicago happened slowly, like a migraine. First they were driving through countryside, then, imperceptibly, the occasional town became a low suburban sprawl, and the sprawl became the city.
So, if a city has a personality, maybe it also has a soul. Maybe it dreams.
All bookshelves are magical.
Until that moment she had never thought she could do it. Never thought she would be brave enough or scared enough, or desperate enough to dare.
Never use five words if you can get away with one, eh? I’ve known dead men talk more than you do.
It is going to take more than just a couple of good-hearted souls to raise this child. It will take a graveyard.
When you love something you just don’t want to stop talking about it.
I must confess, I have always wondered what lay beyond life, my dear. Yeah, everybody wonders. And sooner or later everybody gets to find out.
It goes without saying that all of the people, living, dead, and otherwise, in this story are fictional or used in a fictional context. Only the gods are real.
I will be brave, thought Coraline. No, I am brave.
If you, as a parent, raise your children well, they won’t need you anymore. If you did it properly, they go away.
There is a madness, yes, this is true. Few mortals possess it, the willingness to step away from the protection of sanity. To walk into the wild wood of madness...
I decided that I would do my best in the future not to write books just for money. If you didn’t get the money then you didn’t have anything. If I did the work I was proud of and I didn’t get the money, at least I’d have the work.