Philip Pullman quotes - page 6

This is not a Kingdom but a Republic, in which we are all free and equal citizens, with - and this is the important thing - responsibilities. (Philip Pullman)
We can find a way of creating them for ourselves if we think in terms of a Republic of Heaven.
Philip Pullman
Perhaps some particles move backward in time; perhaps the future affects the past in some way we don't understand; or perhaps the universe is simply more aware than we are. There are many things we haven't yet learned how to read.
Philip Pullman
I'm trying to write a book about what it means to be human, to grow up, to suffer and learn.
Philip Pullman
Will darted back to the gutter, and picked up the knife, and the fight was over.
Philip Pullman
It was difficult to tell them the truth when a lie would have been so much easier for them to understand.
Philip Pullman
You haven't got the choice," said the old man. "You are the bearer now.
Philip Pullman
What Asriel's done has shaken everything up, Mr. Scoresby, shaken it more profoundly than it's ever been shaken before.
Philip Pullman
Your dæmon can only live its full life in the world it was born in. Elsewhere it will eventually sicken and die.
Philip Pullman
No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build...
Philip Pullman
Every Indication of Inadvertant Solitude. (Philip Pullman)
And yet I respect Lewis more than I do Tolkien.
Philip Pullman
I just don't like the conclusions Lewis comes to.
Philip Pullman
My time is over," he said. "The knife knows when to leave one hand and settle in another, and I know how to tell.
Philip Pullman
Can you imagine my astonishment, in turn, at learning that part of my own nature was female, and bird-formed, and beautiful?
Philip Pullman
Tolkien's work has very little of interest in it to a reader of literature, in my opinion. When I think of literature - Dickens, George Eliot, Joseph Conrad - the great novelists found their subject matter in human nature, emotion, in the ways we relate to each other. If that's what Tolkien's up to, he's left out half of it.
Philip Pullman
I don't suppose that was a good thing for them to say. You might not have believed in angels.
Philip Pullman
Amateurs think that if they were inspired all the time, they could be professionals. Professional know that if they relied on inspiration, they'd be amateurs.
Philip Pullman
His (C. S. Lewis's) work is not frivolous in the way that Tolkien is frivolous.
Philip Pullman
All that was left was the sweetness of that feeling, and the injunction to tell them stories.
Philip Pullman
All these tattered old bits and pieces have a history and a meaning. (Philip Pullman)
I have said that His Dark Materials is not fantasy but stark realism, and my reason for this is to emphasise what I think is an important aspect of the story, namely the fact that it is realistic, in psychological terms.
Philip Pullman
This book contains a story and several other things.
Philip Pullman
If you're the bearer of the knife, you have a task that's greater than you can imagine.
Philip Pullman
I knew I was telling a story that would be gripping enough to take readers with it, and I have a high enough opinion of my readers to expect them to take a little difficulty in their stride.
Philip Pullman