“Sometimes human beings are very much like bees. Bees are fiercely protective of their hive, provided you are outside it. Once you’re in, the workers sort of assume that it must have been cleared by management and take no notice; various freeloading insects have evolved a mellifluous existence because of this very fact. Humans act the same way.”

“You’re going back?” asked Bod. Things that had been immutable were changing. “You’re really leaving? But. You’re my guardian.” “I was you’re guardian. But you are old enough to guard yourself. I have other things to protect.”

“There are only two worlds - your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. these worlds provide an alternative. Provide an escape. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power; provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist; and thus they are all that matters. ”

“I felt very much like a hooker who had just been told she was a lady of the evening.”

“If you want to call it that. But it is a very specific sort of magic. There's a magic you take from death. Something leaves the world, something else comes into it.”

“And there was a voice, a high clear, female voice, which said "Ow", and then, very quietly, it said "Fuck", and then it said "Ow", once more.”

“You know I love you,' said the other mother flatly.'You have a very funny way of showing it,' said Coraline.”