Neil Gaiman - Coraline (2002)

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They were having an argument as old and comfortable as an armchair, the kind of argument that no one ever really wins or loses but which can go on forever, if both parties are willing.

Neil Gaiman
What's your name,' Coraline asked the cat. 'Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?' 'Cats don't have names,' it said. 'No?' said Coraline. 'No,' said the cat. '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.

Neil Gaiman
I'm bored," she said. "Learn how to tap-dance," he suggested, without turning around.

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The names are the first things to go, after the breath has gone, and the beating of the heart. We keep our memories longer than our names.

Neil Gaiman
Nothing's changed. You'll go home. You'll be bored. You'll be ignored. No one will listen to you, really listen to you. You're too clever and too quiet for them to understand. They don't even get your name right.

Neil Gaiman
"What's your name," Coraline asked the cat. "Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?"

Neil Gaiman
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.

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"Because," she said, "when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave."

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I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. Not really. What kind of fun would it be if I just got everything I ever wanted just like that, and it didn't mean anything? What then?

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But how can you walk away from something and still come back to it?

Neil Gaiman
The cat dropped the rat between its two front paws. "There are those," it said with a sigh, in tones as smooth as oiled silk, "who have suggested that the tendency of a cat to play with its prey is a merciful one - after all, it permits the occasional funny little running snack to escape, from time to time. How often does your dinner get to escape?

Neil Gaiman
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 mother. "I put her in there myself. And when I found her trying to crawl out, I put her back.

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Why does she want me?" Coraline asked the cat. "Why does she want me to stay here with her?" "She wants something to love, I think," said the cat. "Something that isn't her. She might want something to eat as well. It's hard to tell with creatures like that.

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Being brave doesn't mean you aren't scared. Being brave means you are scared, really scared, badly scared, and you do the right thing anyway.

Neil Gaiman
The sky had never seemed so sky; the world had never seemed so world.

Neil Gaiman
She found herself to be quite worried that something would jump out at her, so she began to whistle. She thought it might make it harder for things to jump out at her, if she was whistling.

Neil Gaiman
But I have always thought that these tulips must have had names. They were red, and orange and red, and red and orange and yellow, like the ember in a nursery fire of a winter's evening. I remember them.

Neil Gaiman
On the first day Coraline's family moved in, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible made a point of telling Coraline how dangerous the well was, and they warned her to be sure she kept away from it. So Coraline set off to explore for it, so that she knew where it was, to keep away from it properly.

Neil Gaiman
Oh- my twitchy witchy girl I think you are so nice, I give you bowls of porridge And I give you bowls of ice Cream. I give you lots of kisses, And I give lots of hugs, But I never give you sandwiches With bugs In.

Neil Gaiman
It is astonishing just how much of what we are can be tied to the beds we wake up in in the morning, and it is astonishing how fragile that can be.

Neil Gaiman
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.

Neil Gaiman
Her other mother smiled brightly and the hair on her head drifted like plants under the sea.

Neil Gaiman
You know that I love you." And despite herself, Coraline nodded. It was true. The other mother loved her. But she loved Coraline as a miser loves money, or a dragon loves its gold. In the other mother's button eyes, Coraline knew knew that the other mother loved her as a possession, nothing more, a tolerated pet whose behavior was no longer amusing.

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We are small but we are many, we are many we are small; we were here before you rose, we will be here when you fall.

Neil Gaiman
There's a but, isn't there?" said Coraline. "I can feel it. Like a rain cloud.

Neil Gaiman