Quotes from Philip Pullman

You speak of destiny as if it was fixed. And I ain't sure I like that any more than a war I'm enlisted in without knowing about it. Where's my free will, if you please?

His massive, plain, blunt presence was enough to calm them.

Thats the duty of the old, said the Librarian, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.

her, so Ama was free to imagine. One day she took some flat bread sweetened with honey and walked the three-hour journey along the trail to Cho-Lung-Se, where there was a monastery. By wheedling and patience, and by bribing the porter with some of the honey bread, she managed to gain an audience with the great healer Pagdzin

Ik wist niet eens dat u Alice heette. - Lyra

Can you imagine my astonishment, in turn, at learning that part of my own nature was female, and bird-formed, and beautiful?

Lives had been spent here—people had loved one another and eaten and drunk and laughed and betrayed and been afraid of death—and not a single fragment of that remained. White stones, black shadows.

De blik die hij zich zo goed herinnerde van toen hij haar lesgaf, die uitdrukking van blanco, ongenaakbaar verzet, schuilde achter haar ogen.

Ze zijn ingetogen in hun kleding, en hebben de houding van panters. Jij kunt dat. Je doet het al, alleen weet je het niet. - Farder Coram tegen Lyra

It was one of those moments when we suddenly recall a dream that we've unaccountably forgotten, and back in a flood comes all the emotion we felt in our sleep

Sea cual sea tu talento, habrás de descubrir su naturaleza y seguirle la veta. De lo contrario, la vida puede volvérsete muy melancólica.

Ik weet wat de Dienst Kinderbescherming is,' zei Alice. Malcolm had zijn mond vol eten, maar wist uit te brengen: 'Wat dan?' Haar dæmon zei: 'Klootzakken,' en gromde weer.

Lyra ook niet.' 'Elfenmelk,' zei ze. 'Wat doet dat met je? Is ze nu ook een elfje?

That is what the Church does, and every church is the same: control, destroy, obliterate every good feeling. So if a war comes, and the Church is on one side of it, we must be on the other, no matter what strange allies we find ourselves bound to.

Malcolm verbeet de pijn in zijn linkerarm en rommelde onder in de rugzak op zoek naar de alethiometer in de zwartfluwelen stof. Terwijl hij hem tevoorschijn haalde, viel het fluwelen lapje open en het gouden mechaniek glansde in het zwakke licht. 'Wat is dát?' vroeg Asriel. 'Een aardigheidje voor Lyra.' En Malcolm stopte het vlug tussen haar dekentjes.

some of what's good has to hurt us a little

There's others who longed to be dead when they were alive, poor souls; lives full of pain or misery; killed themselves for a chance of a blessed rest, and found that nothing had changed except for the worse, and this time there was no escape; you can't make yourself alive again.

1. Podemos controlar lo que hacemos, pero no lo que somos. 2. Por otra parte, y simultáneamente, o que hacemos depende de lo que somos (de lo que hemos de hacer con ello), y lo que somos puede verse modificado por lo que hacemos. 3. Lo que hacemos es moralmente significante. Lo que somos, no.

La alabanza o la condena, la virtud o la culpa, han de aplicarse a nuestros actos, no a nuestra ascendencia ni a nuestra adscripción a este o aquel grupo.

Reason had brought her to this state. She had exalted reason over every other faculty. The result had been—was now—the deepest unhappiness she had ever felt.

gyropters will arrive shortly after the zeppelins. In accordance with your orders, the Lady

Las afirmaciones de identidad no están libres de consecuencias. Limitan tanto como robustecen. Para mí, prefiero no tener una de esas identidades sencillas y públicas. No sé lo que soy, y no me apetece especialmente saberlo.

ferocious and meaningless screams.

Y durante buena parte del tiempo, la sabiduría ha tenido que trabajar en secreto, susurrando sus palabras, moviéndose como un espía a través de los lugares humildes del mundo mientras las cortes y los palacios están ocupados por sus enemigos.