Quotes from Philip Pullman

The present Mr. Parslow was teaching his son the craft; the two of them and their three workmen would scramble like industrious termites over the scaffolding they'd erected at the corner of the library, or over the roof of the chapel, and haul up bright new blocks of stone or rolls of shiny lead or balks of timber. The

There were areas of her life about which she cared passionately and which he was indifferent to or simply unaware of.

The two old men couldn't help smiling, but whereas Farder Coram's smile was a hesitant, rich, complicated expression that trembled across his face like sunlight chasing shadows on a windy March day, John Faa's smile was slow, warm, plain, and kindly.

I can't do that anymore. That was just fancy. I was spinning tales out of the air, nothing more than that; there was nothing solid in them. Maybe Pan was right, and I haven't got a real imagination. I was bullshitting.

When bears act like people, perhaps they can be tricked, said Serafina Pekkala. When bears act like bears, perhaps they can't. No bear would normally drink spirits. Iorek Byrnison drank to forget the shame of exile, and it was only that which let the Trollesund people trick him.

in a little adventure that had culminated in her thinking that everything meant something, if only she could read it. The universe had seemed alive then. There were messages to be read everywhere you looked.

Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which gives their lies such wide-eyed conviction. So

but she knew about angels. St. Augustine had said, "Angel is the name of their office, not of their nature. If you seek the name of their nature, it is spirit; if you seek the name of their office, it is angel; from what they are, spirit, from what they do, angel.

Lyra felt herself moving into a kind of trance beyond sleep and waking: a state of conscious dreaming, almost, in which she was dreaming that she was being carried by bears to a city in the stars. She

La religión cristiana es un error muy poderoso y convincente, eso es todo.

Then she felt dizzy. This was all impossible, and it was all happening.

Since coming home to Oxford after that strange adventure, they had told no one about it, and exercised the most scrupulous care to keep it a secret; but sometimes, and more often recently, they simply had to get away from each other.

The meaning of something is its connection to something else

All she could do was hope, and she kept trying to do that in spite of the fear and loneliness.

Phantoms. Ghasts of this kind or that. Emissaries of the Evil One. Do you believe that? Of course. It would be an intellectual failure to do anything else.

She felt so alone. She felt as if her life had gone into a kind of hibernation, as if part of her were asleep and maybe dreaming the rest. She let herself be passive; she accepted whatever happened.

William,' she said, 'I wish you'd tell me what the matter is—' 'It's a bit complicated,' he said, 'but she won't be any trouble, honestly.' That wasn't what she meant, and both of them knew it; but somehow Will was in charge of this business, whatever it was.

Serafina said, 'Have you been married, Mr Scoresby? Have you any children?' 'No, ma'am, I have no child, though I would have liked to be a father. But I understand your question, and you're right: that little girl has had bad luck with her true parents, and maybe I can make it up to her. Someone has to do it, and I'm willing.

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.

Love makes us suffer. But this task of ours is greater than revenge. Remember that.

No, pero dejé de creer que existían un poder benéfico y un poder malévolo que estaba fuera de nosotros. Y me convencí de que el bien y el mal solo designan las acciones de las personas, no lo que estas son. Solo podemos decir que esta es una buena acción porque beneficia a alguien, y que esa otra es una mala acción porque perjudica a alguien. Las personas son demasiado complejas para ponerles simples etiquetas.

They gave her another image: she was enticing monsters out of the darkness of herself.

Sounds like what we call physics, your experimental theology. You want scientists, not theologians.

and coming from the walls all around was a slight humming sound, almost too low to hear, the sort of sound you had to get used to or go mad.