Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she had met made any sense.
“One day, little Caroline, when they are all ready, everyone in the whole world will see the wonders of my mouse circus. You ask me why you cannot see it now. Is that what you asked me?”
Sharper than a serpent's tooth,” she said, “is a daughter's ingratitude. Still, the proudest spirit can be broken, with love.
“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.”
We're here. We're ready to love you and play with you and feed you and make your life interesting.”
when you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.
And he said that wasn't brave of him, doing that, just standing there and being stung,” said Coraline to the cat. “It wasn't brave because he wasn't scared: it was the only thing he could do. But going back again to get his glasses, when he knew the wasps were there, when he was really scared. That was brave.
He said that he wasn't scared when he was standing there and the wasps were stinging him and hurting him and he was watching me run away. Because he knew he had to give me enough time to run, or the wasps would have come after both of us.”
“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.”
Or almost exactly the same: around Miss Spink and Miss Forcible's door were blue and red lightbulbs that flashed on and off spelling out words, the lights chasing each other around the door. On and off, around and around. Astounding! was followed by a theatrical and then triumph!!!
