Philip Pullman quotes - page 4

If there is a war to be fought, we don't consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not to fight. (Philip Pullman)
Tell him, we are not devils but we have friends who are.
Philip Pullman
Religion grants its adherents malign, intoxicating and morally corrosive sensations. Destroying intellectual freedom is always evil, but only religion makes doing evil feel quite so good.
Philip Pullman
Men pass in front of our eyes like butterflies, creatures of a brief season. We love them; they are brave, proud, beautiful, clever; and they die almost at once. They die so soon that our hearts are continually wracked with pain.
Philip Pullman
That is how it seems.... But we can't read the darkness, Mr. Scoresby. It is more than possible that I might be wrong.
Philip Pullman
As I understand it, the Holy Church teaches that there are two worlds: the world of everything we can see and hear and touch, and another world, the spiritual world of heaven and hell. Barnard and Stokes were two - how shall I put it - renegade theologians who postulated the existence of numerous other worlds like this one, neither heaven nor hell, but material and sinful. They are there, close by, but invisible and unreachable.
Philip Pullman
She is the goddess of the dead. She comes to you smiling and kindly, and you know it is time to die.
Philip Pullman
Will moved on grimly, screwing up his eyes against the glare, ignoring the worsening pain from his hand, and finally reaching a state in which movement alone was good and stillness bad, so that he suffered more from resting than from toiling on. And since the failure of the witches' spell to stop his bleeding, he thought they were regarding him with fear, too, as if he was marked by some curse greater than their own powers.
Philip Pullman
The first ghosts trembled with hope, and their excitement passed back like a ripple over the long line behind them, young children and aged parents alike looking up and ahead with delight and wonder as the first stars they had seen for centuries shone through into their poor starved eyes.
Philip Pullman
Lyra has a part to play in all this, and a major one. The irony is that she must do it all without realizing what she's doing. She can be helped, though, and if my plan with the Tokay had succeeded, she would have been safe for a little longer. I would have liked to spare her a journey to the North.
Philip Pullman
The lizard dragged the priest's body back to her nest, and her children feasted very well. As for the rifle, it lay in the grass where Father Gomez had laid it down, quietly turning to rust. (Philip Pullman)
Lyra and her dæmon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen.
Philip Pullman
Without their tiger gods, the tribe declined into fear and melancholy and begged her to allow them to worship her instead, only to be rejected with contempt; for what good would their worship do her? she asked. It had done nothing for the tigers.
Philip Pullman
But as the wave expended its force and the waters withdrew, the bleak rocks remained; there was no arguing with fate; neither his despair nor Lyra's had moved them a single inch.
Philip Pullman
On an unseasonably, uncomfortably, unnaturally warm day in mid-October I sit here trying not to think about global warming. But it's difficult. Is this fear going to pass away like the other fears I remember - nuclear war, overpopulation leading to mass starvation, the hole in the ozone layer, acid rain? Well, those problems haven't gone away exactly. The new one just seems bigger than all the rest.
Philip Pullman
I hold the subtle knife on behalf of the Guild.
Philip Pullman
"I wish...” she said, and stopped. There was nothing that could be gained by wishing for it. A final deep shaky breath, and she was ready to go on.
Philip Pullman
Who is this man who's got the knife?
Philip Pullman
If they live in the world, they should see and touch and hear and learn things.
Philip Pullman
Had she thought there was no meaning in life, no purpose, when God had gone? Yes, she had thought that. "Well, there is now,” she said aloud, and again, louder: "There is now!”.
Philip Pullman
Seems to me the place you fight cruelty is where you find it, and the place you give help is where you see it needed. (Philip Pullman)
It was all very well, the alethiometer telling her to be truthful, but she knew what would happen if she told the whole truth. She had to tread carefully and just avoid direct lies.
Philip Pullman
In Lyra's heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won.
Philip Pullman
Now here are these children who have gone through great adventures and learned wonderful things and would therefore be in a position to do great things to help other people. But they're taken away. He doesn't let them. For the sake of taking them off to a perpetual school holiday or something, he kills them all in a train crash. I think that's ghastly. It's a horrible message.
Philip Pullman
She said that all the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. She and the rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed.
Philip Pullman