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The first ghosts trembled with hope, and their excitement passed back like a ripple over the long line behind them, young children and aged parents alike looking up and ahead with delight and wonder as the first stars they had seen for centuries shone through into their poor starved eyes.
Philip Pullman -
I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring.
Philip Pullman
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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.
Philip Pullman -
Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually racked with pain.
Philip Pullman -
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!'
Philip Pullman -
'And then what?' said her Dæmon sleepily 'build what?''The Republic of Heaven.'
Philip Pullman -
In Lyra’s heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won.
Philip Pullman -
You cannot change what you are, only what you do.
Philip Pullman
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Both the Oblation Board and the Specters of Indifference are bewitched by this truth about human beings: that innocence is different from experience. The Oblation Board fears and hates Dust, and the Specters feast on it, but it's Dust both of them are obsessed by.
Philip Pullman -
The arts are beyond price; they're beyond value. They're of incalculable worth in what it means to be a human being.
Philip Pullman -
You're lacking a human dimension of some sort if you're not interested in the arts.
Philip Pullman -
Comics are a wonderful form. You can do so much with it.
Philip Pullman -
'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.'
Philip Pullman -
If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day.
Philip Pullman
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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.
Philip Pullman -
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.
Philip Pullman -
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.
Philip Pullman -
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.
Philip Pullman -
'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.'
Philip Pullman -
It was all very well, the alethiometer telling her to be truthful, but she knew what would happen if she told the whole truth. She had to tread carefully and just avoid direct lies.
Philip Pullman
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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.
Philip Pullman -
Everyone in the book's ecology, starting with the author and including the publisher, the distributor, the booksellers, the libraries, and ending up with the reader, should benefit from a healthy book trade.
Philip Pullman -
What Asriel's done has shaken everything up, Mr. Scoresby, shaken it more profoundly than it's ever been shaken before. These doorways and windows that I spoke of - they open in unexpected places now. It's hard to navigate, but this wind is a fair one.
Philip Pullman -
The Master of Jordan College is a foolish old man. Why he gave it to her I can't imagine; you need several years of intensive study to make any sense of it at all.
Philip Pullman