“What makes you think I'm giving you a ride?” “Because I'm a damsel in distress,” she said. “And you are a knight in whatever. A really dirty car.”

“Coraline sighed. 'You really don't understand do you?' she said. '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?”

“I'm the idiot box. I'm the TV. I'm the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. I'm the boob tube. I'm the little shrine the family gathers to adore.' 'You're the television? Or someone in the television?' 'The TV's the altar. I'm what people are sacrificing to.' 'What do they sacrifice?' asked Shadow.'Their time, mostly,' said Lucy. 'Sometimes each other.' She raised two fingers, blew imaginary gunsmoke from the tips. Then she winked, a big old I Love Lucy wink.'You're a God?' said Shadow.Lucy smirked, and took a ladylike puff of her cigarette. 'You could say that,' she said.”

“You play your cards so close to your chest," said Shadow, "that I'm not even sure they're really cards at all.”

“Here you go, she said. I don't need it anymore. I'm very grateful. I think it may have saved my life, saved some other people's death.”

“I'm a stranger," pointed out Bod."You're not," she said, definitely. "You're a little boy." And then she said, "And you're my friend. So you can't be a stranger.”

“I just want you to know,' said the girl, coldly, 'that whoever you are and whatever you intend with me, I shall give you no aid of any kind, nor shall I assist you, and I shall do whatever is in my power to frustrate your plans and devices.' And then she added, with feeling, 'Idiot.”