Quotes from Philip Pullman

But now this child has come offering us a way out and I'm going to follow her. Even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothing, we'll be alive again in a thousand blades of grass, and a million leaves, we'll be falling in the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze, we'll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world which is our true home and always was.

Malcolm was watching everything, looking around unobtrusively, and as the speaker began again, he noticed something: the armed police had quietly vanished. There'd been a man at each of the six exits. Now there were none.

Or had she imagined it, and was her imagination just a spindrift of falsity?

Tony ate the rest of his pie and drank the sweet hot liquor without taking much notice of his surroundings, and the surroundings took little notice of him: he was too small to be a threat, and too stolid to promise much satisfaction as a victim. It

Del inclinado tejado colgaban mágicas hileras de lámparas que refulgían cual estrellas y brillantes faroles de aceite que proyectaban luz… John Milton

The temperature had disturbed the insects, and a cloud of midges made every outline hazy.

He was the lover of a witch from the Karelia region, briefly, but she was killed in battle—She spoiled me for women younger'n three hundred; but he had plenty of lovers all the same.

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

He's saying that everything you know is going to change. Things that you are familiar with will become strange and alien, and things you have never imagined will become normal.

I love him so much, Will! she managed to whisper shakily. And he looked old! He looked hungry and old and sad... Is it all coming on to us now, Will? We can't rely on anyone else now, can we... It's just us. But we en't old enough yet. We're only young... We're too young... If poor Mr Scoresby's dead and Iorek's old... It's all coming on to us, what's got to be done.

And was it true before Pythagoras realized it?" Malcolm thought. "Yes," he said. "It must have been." "So he didn't invent it. He discovered it." "Yes." "Good. Now let's take one of the alethiometer symbols.

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

it must have been the case that there had been an angel among the hostages, that he'd struck down the leader as punishment for shooting the farmer, and then vanished, probably flown back to heaven." "No doubt." "Or to Calvi's.

You shouldn't do it if you hate it. That's just prostitution.

like a little thorn that catches for a moment on a traveler's sleeve, only to pull out when the traveler walks on.

She lay on her bunk thinking of that savage mighty bear, and the careless way he drank his fiery spirit, and the loneliness of him in his dirty lean-to. How different it was to be human, with one's dæmon always there to talk to!

but knowing that she could do it wasn't the same as being able to do it just then.

Oak bark, spider silk, ground moss, saltweed— grip close, bind tight, hold fast, close up, bar the door, lock the gate, stiffen the blood-wall, dry the gore-flood.

Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth. —William Blake

I lied and lied, Asriel… Let's not wait too long, I can't bear it… We won't live, will we? We won't survive like the ghosts?" "Not if we fall into the abyss. We came here to give Lyra time to find her dæmon, and then time to live and grow up. If we take Metatron to extinction, Marisa, she'll have that time, and if we go with him, it doesn't matter.

Will knew that the man was speaking the truth. But it wasn't a welcome truth. It was heavy and painful

Will said to his father's ghost, "You said I was a warrior. You told me that was my nature, and I shouldn't argue with it. Father, you were wrong. I fought because I had to. I can't choose my nature, but I can choose what I do. And I will choose, because now I'm free.

I wish I'd seen, as I was writing it, that it would be much more effective if he motivation were love; that he does these terrible things out of sheer compassion. He's killing people in order to save their souls....It's much more interesting, because much more realistic, when there's a struggle between different goods.

I think Lyra's braver than me; I think she's the best friend I ever had.