Coraline & Other Stories

“And he said that wasnʼt brave of him, doing that, just standing there and being stung,” said Coraline to the cat. “It wasnʼt brave because he wasnʼt 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.”

A world in which there are monsters, and ghosts, and things that want to steal your heart is a world in which there are angels and dreams and, above all, a world in which there is hope.

When you're scared but you still do it anyway, that's brave.

- 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.

I don't want whatever I want. Nobody does. 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?

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten. G.K. Chesterton

- we... we could be friends, you know, said Coraline.

• We could be rare specimens of an exotic breed of African dancing elephants, said the cat. - But we are not.