Philip Pullman Quotes
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My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing.
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'For a human being, nothing comes naturally,' said Grumman. 'We have to learn everything we do.'
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Trying to understand superstition rationally is like trying to pick up something made of wood by using a magnet.
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I had passed through the entire British education system studying literature, culminating in three years of reading English at Oxford, and they'd never told me about something as basic as the importance of point of view in fiction!
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Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it.
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Seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed.
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If a nation allows its literary culture to die, it's a sign that it doesn't fundamentally care.
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One curious thing about growing up is that you don't only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents' and grandparents' lives come to you.
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Had she thought there was no meaning in life, no purpose, when God had gone? Yes, she had thought that. 'Well, there is now,' she said aloud, and again, louder: 'There is now!'
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Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.
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Possibly because I earn my living as a writer of fiction and possibly because it's just the sensible thing to do, I like to pay attention to everything I come across, including things that evoke the uncanny or the mysterious.
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Lyra has a part to play in all this, and a major one. The irony is that she must do it all without realizing what she's doing. She can be helped, though, and if my plan with the Tokay had succeeded, she would have been safe for a little longer. I would have liked to spare her a journey to the North.
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Adam and Eve are like imaginary numbers, like the square root of minus one... If you include it in your equation, you can calculate all manners of things, which cannot be imagined without it.
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One handy piece of equipment, which I recommend to any writer of fiction, is a set of Myriorama cards. I consult them frequently.
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For a long time I thought I was a poet, but that's a high title to claim.
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I like every individual editor, designer, marketing and publicity person I deal with, but I don't like what publishers, corporately, are doing to the ecology of the book world. It's damaging, and it should change.
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Comics are a wonderful form. You can do so much with it.
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In Lyra’s heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won.
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The arts are beyond price; they're beyond value. They're of incalculable worth in what it means to be a human being.
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For that reason you can't write with music playing, and anyone who says he can is either writing badly, or not listening to the music, or lying. You need to hear what you're writing, and for that you need silence.
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'But suppose your dæmon settles in a shape you don't like?' 'Well, then, you're discontented, en't you? There's plenty of fold as'd like to have a lion as a dæmon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they're going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is.'
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'Doesn’t it scare you, having your death close by all the time?' said Lyra. 'Why ever would it? If he’s there, you can keep an eye on him. I'd be a lot more nervous not knowing where he was.'
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Being in love was like China: you knew it was there, and no doubt it was very interesting, and some people went there, but I never would. I'd spend all my life without ever going to China, but it wouldn't matter, because there was all the rest of the world to visit.
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I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief.