Philip Pullman Quotes

I feel with some passion that what we truly are is private, and almost infinitely complex, and ambig...

I’m with the fool in the psalm. You thought we could get on without you; no – you didn’t care whethe...

I’m working on another Lyra book right now – it’s called The Book of Dust.“It’s going very well and ...

You speak of destiny as if it was fixed.

Stories don’t teach us to be good; it isn’t as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be...

I'm trying to undermine the basis of Christian belief... I'm not in the business of offending people...

When you stopped believing in God," he went on, "did you stop believing in good and evil?""No. But I...

I have said that His Dark Materials is not fantasy but stark realism, and my reason for this is to e...

Fritz had to stop himself from interrupting when Karl spoke about the difficulty of working. Stories...

You don't win races by wishing, you win them by running faster than everyone else does.

If you want something you can have it, but only if you want everything that goes with it, including ...

He sat down and collected his thoughts. They were quite easy to collect, because there weren't very ...

Finally, I’d say to anyone who wants to tell these tales, don’t be afraid to be superstitious. If yo...

Princess, princess, youngest daughter,Open up and let me in!Or else your promise by the waterIsn’t w...

The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration. To keep to one version or one tra...

This is what’ll happen,” she said, “and it’s true, perfectly true. When you go out of here, all the ...

I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other aga...

Seems to me-" Lee said, feeling for the words, "seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you...

I don't like rats any more than the next bloke, but they ain't wicked and cruel like people can be. ...

Darling, no one would ever dream of performing an operation on a child without testing it first. And...

Maybe sometimes we don't do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don...

People are too complicated to have simple labels.

And Will knew what it was to see his dæmon. As she flew down to the sand, he felt his heart tighten ...

And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are. All we...

It might have been a new way for her heart to beat.

I told him I was going to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and ...

Tell them stories.

In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream milky with meltwater s...

I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you ...

Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn b...

When we were alive, they told us that when we died we'd go to heaven. And they said that heaven was ...

What work do I have to do then?" said Will, but went on at once, "No, on second thought, don't tell ...

We shouldn't live as if [other worlds] mattered more than this life in this world, because where we ...

I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read.

He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if i...

Around them there was nothing but silence, as if all the world were holding its breath.

But Balthamos couldn't tell; he only knew that half his heart had been extinguished. He couldn't kee...

And Pantalaimon didn't ask why, because he knew; and he didn't ask whether Lyra loved Roger more tha...

When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don't take are snuffed out like candles, as if...

I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came t...

I can’t bear the thought of oblivion, Asriel,” she continued. “Sooner anything than that. I used to ...

Occasionally they would hear a harsh croak or a splash as some amphibian was disturbed, but the only...

she allowed herself to dwell on the cause of this strange, apprehensive exultation that she sensed f...

A few minutes after he arrived, Lee was talking to a group of astronomers eager to learn what news h...

Who are you?" the woman said at last."Lyra Silver—""No, where d'you come from? What are you? How do ...

All she knew was that she must be in love with someone, or she wouldn't feel so miserable.

The Specters feast as vampires feast on blood, but the Specters’ food is attention. A conscious and ...

He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotatio...

Her last conscious thought was disgust at life; her senses had lied to her. The world was not made o...

You going to be a scientist when you grow up?” That sort of question deserved a blank stare, which i...

She shook her head and whispered, "No. No! That can't be true. Impossible!""You think things have to...

Everything about this is embarrassing" she said. "D'you know how embarrassing it is to mention good ...

Ruta Skadi was four hundred and sixteen years old, with all the pride and knowledge of an adult witc...

Tirelessly they flew on and on, and tirelessly she kept pace. She felt a fierce joy possessing her, ...

The children will come to no harm.""Except for the older ones. Like that poor kid down there.""Mr. S...

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

Her upbringing had given her an independence of mind that made her more like a girl of today than on...

She has committed great sins, but they've been forgiven, and that's why she loves so deeply.

Lord, if I thought you were listening, I'd pray for this above all: that any church set up in your n...

All writing is difficult. The most you can hope for is a day when it goes reasonably easily. Plumber...

When you look at what C.S. Lewis is saying, his message is so anti-life, so cruel, so unjust. The vi...

The intentions of a tool are what it does. A hammer intends to strike, a vise intends to hold fast, ...

I don't know where I belong, so I'm free. No one's got a hold on me.

Stories don’t teach us to be good; it isn’t as simple as that. They show us what it feels like to be...

Dust is not a constant. There’s not a fixed quantity that has always been the same. Conscious beings...

I am a religious person, although I am not a believer.

You are dead- what am I speaking to?

It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right t...

I think it's perfectly possible to explain how the universe came about without bringing God into it,...

Tolkien, who created this marvellous vehicle, doesn't go anywhere in it. He just sits where he is. W...

Blake said Milton was a true poet and of the Devil's party without knowing it. I am of the Devil's p...

To be sure, there's a warm passion behind what you say. But if you give in to that passion, friends,...

If a coin comes down heads, that means that the possibility of its coming down tails has collapsed. ...

When you live for many hundreds of years, you know that every opportunity will come again.

Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are ...

We've heard them all talk about Dust, and they're so afraid of it, and you know what? We believed th...

If there is a war to be fought, we don’t consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not...

That’s the duty of the old, to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to sc...

Just as she was unaware of the hidden currents of politics running below the surface of College affa...

You cannot change what you are, only what you do.

But suppose your dæmon settles in a shape you don't like?Well, then, you're discontented, en't you? ...

You are so young, Lyra, too young to understand this, but I shall tell you anyway and you'll underst...

She found out that having something to do prevented you from feeling seasick, and that even a job li...

One moment several things are possible, the next moment only one happens, and the rest don't exist. ...

All good things pass away.

It was such a strange tormenting feeling when your daemon was pulling at the link between you; part ...

The evening sky was awash with peach, apricot, cream: tender little ice-cream clouds in a wide orang...

Hope holds you fast like an anchor so you don't give way.

We feel cold, but we don't mind it, because we will not come to harm. And if we wrapped up against t...

We are all subject to the fates. But we must act as if we are not, or die of despair.

Maybe art itself was a kind of voodoo, possessing you, giving you supernatural power, letting you se...

when you're young you do think that things last forever unfortunately they don't Lyra.

As for what it's against - the story is against those who pervert and misuse religion, or any other ...

Just be yourself. You don't have to put on an act.""To be myself, I have to put on an act," Ginny sa...

After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.

Lyra marveled at the effect hope could have.

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

Lyra learns to her great cost that fantasy isn’t enough. She has been lying all her life, telling st...

The act of true reading is in its very essence democratic. Consider the nature of what happens when ...

she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh wo...

Religion begins in story. Yes, it does, because religion is an attempt to make sense of what is inco...