Coraline

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

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.

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

"How do I know you’ll keep your word?" asked Coraline.

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.

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

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?

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.