“He was standing on the pavement outside Nick Farthing's house, his face damp from the thick night mist.”

“Outside, the world had become a formless, swirling mist with noshapes or shadows behind it, while the house itself seemed tohave twisted and stretched. It appeared to Coraline that it wascrouching and staring down at her, as if it were not really ahouse but only the idea of a house—and the person who hadhad the idea, she was certain, was not a good person.”

“The house smelled musty and damp, and a little sweet, as if it were haunted by the ghosts of long-dead cookies.”

“Now,” she told them, “now is the time to be afraid of the dark.” Richard knew that something was about to creep over his face. He closed his eyes: it made no difference to what he saw or felt. The night was complete.”

“We do not always remember the things that do no credit to us. We justify them, cover them in bright lies or with the thick dust of forgetfulness. All of the things that Shadow had done in his life of which he was not proud, all the things he wished he had done otherwise or left undone, came at him then in a swirling storm of guilt and regret and shame, and he had nowhere to hide from them. He was as naked and as open as a corpse on a table, and dark Anubis the jackal god was his prosector and his prosecutor and his persecutor.”

“The people in the city seem paper thin in the mist. They believe they are dancing to the music of their lives... But I think, like the puppets, each of us is pulled upon invisible strings, until the night comes and we are put away. I shiver, and hurry from the square, as the darkness of the city closes over me like canal water or the grave.”

“Repeat after me, there are the living and the dead, there are day-folk and night-folk, there are ghouls and mist-walkers, there are high hunters and the Hounds of God. Also, there are solitary types.""What are you?" asked Bod."I," she said sternly, "am Miss Lupescu.""And what is Silas?"She hesitated. Then she said, "He is a solitary type.”