Quotes from Philip Pullman

Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.

Iorek Byrnison: Can is not the same as must. Lyra Silvertongue: But if you must and you can, then there's no excuse.

There's a hunger for stories in all of us, adults too. We need stories so much that we're even willing to read bad books to get them, if the good books won't supply them.

I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he'd see the truth. But I lied too well. I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I'd ever done...I wanted him to find no good in me, and he didn't. There is none.

Maybe sometimes we don't do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don't want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it's dangerous. We're more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right.

Children are not less intelligent than adults; what they are is less informed.

I am a strong believer in the tyranny, the dictatorship, the absolute authority of the writer.

I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief... I'm not in the business of offending people. I find the books upholding certain values that I think are important, such as life is immensely valuable and this world is an extraordinarily beautiful place. We should do what we can to increase the amount of wisdom in the world. [ Washington Post interview, 19 February 2001 ]

It should be a firmly established part of the curriculum that children should visit theatres and concert halls.

That's the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

My only real claim to anyone's attention lies in my writing.

What I couldn't help noticing was that I learned more about the novel in a morning by trying to write a page of one than I'd learned in seven years or so of trying to write criticism

Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.

she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.

My books are about killing God.

I don't profess any religion; I don't think it's possible that there is a God.... My books are about killing God.

There is another consequence of any belief in a single god, and that is that it is a very good excuse for people to behave very badly.

D'you know how embarrassing it is to mention good and evil in a scientific laboratory? Have you any idea? One of the reasons I became a scientist was not to have to think about that kind of thing.

For a human being, nothing comes naturally,' said Grumman. 'We have to learn everything we do.

I am a strong believer in the tyranny, the dictatorship, the absolute authority of the writer.

There's a hunger for stories in all of us, adults too. We need stories so much that we're even willing to read bad books to get them, if the good books won't supply them.

I tried writing out a plot with the second or third novel I wrote, and it was so boring, so desperately boring.

Comics are a wonderful form. You can do so much with it.

Authors are not a special case, deserving of more sympathy than many other groups. We are a particular case of a general degradation of the quality of life, and we are not going to stop pointing it out, because we speak for many other groups as well.