“She smiled again. "Do you like cat?" she said."Yes," said Richard. "I quite like cats."Anaesthesia looked relieved. "Thigh?" she asked, "or breast?”

“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.”

“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.”

“How old are you?" asked Door. Richard was pleased she had asked; he would never have dared."As old as my tongue," said Hunter, primly, "and a little older than my teeth.”

“Coraline opened the box of chocolates. The dog looked at them longingly."Would you like one?" she asked the little dog."Yes, please," whispered the dog. "Only not toffee ones. They make me drool.""I thought chocolates weren't very good for dogs," she said, remembering something Miss Forcible had once told her."Maybe where you come from," whispered the little dog. "Here, it's all we eat.”

“There," she said, waving her hands at the corridor. The expression of delight on her face was a very bad thing to see."You're wrong! You don't know where your parents are, do you?" she turned and looked at Coraline. "Now," she said, "you're going to stay here for ever and always.”

“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.”