Philip Pullman Quotes

I am a story teller. If I wanted to send a message I would have written a sermon.

Writing is tyranny ... but reading is democracy.

If you can't think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you've finished the three pages, don't write it; it'll be that much easier to get going next day.

A professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they're not inspired as when they are.

Do not lie to the Scholar.

But I know that all the things I do know are very small compared with the things that I don't know.

We measure the value of a civilized society by the number of #‎ libraries it opens, not the number it closes down.

When he'd sworn at her and been sworn at in return, they became great friends.

Seems to me-" Lee said, feeling for the words, "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.

All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.

We need to ensure that children are not forced to waste their time on barren rubbish.

Iorek Byrnison: Can is not the same as must. Lyra Silvertongue: But if you must and you can, then there's no excuse.

The Christian religion is a very powerful and convincing mistake.

You don't read it in the sense of reading a message; it doesn't work like that. What's happening is that the Shadows are responding to the attention you pay them.

The e-book revolution has made it very easy to pay writers a good deal less than what their work is worth. I do strongly believe that we writers ought to hold out for much better royalties.

Well, I have an idea, usually a visual image of some sort. A setting. A particular, I don't know, urban scene, a particular time of day. Something that grips my imagination for some reason.

The great thing about fairy tales and folk tales is that there is no authentic text.

The state of mind which I put myself when I tell a story is one in which superstition flourishes very easily. And I welcome that because it helps me.

I'm with the Grimms on this: stories for young and old. You can't characterize them any better than that.

The justice of it seems to children correct and right - I mean, we laugh at it! We underestimate children's ability to know what is a story and what isn't.

I practiced on the greatest model of storytelling we've got, which is "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." I told those stories many, many times.

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

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

Don Quixote could never manage without his patient servant Sancho Panza.

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

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

Maybe art itself was a kind of voodoo, possessing you, giving you supernatural power, letting you see in the dark.

He let her do it, then looked around for his fingers. There they were, curled like a bloody quotation mark on the lead. He laughed.

Eventually sinking into despair, [Heinrich von Kleist] shot himself in 1811 as part of a suicide pact made with a woman suffering from incurable cancer.

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

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

He sat down and collected his thoughts. They were quite easy to collect, because there weren't very many of them, and they all concerned the same subject--what a burden his life was.

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

Just be yourself. You don't have to put on an act.""To be myself, I have to put on an act, " Ginny said bitterly."What's that mean?""It means I don't know who I am.

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

Lyra marveled at the effect hope could have.

she delighted in being of the same substance as them, and in knowing that when she died her flesh would nourish other lives as they had nourished her.

I was connected to God like that, and because he was there, I was connected to the whole of his creation.

Seems to me-" Lee said, feeling for the words, "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....

A few minutes after he arrived, Lee was talking to a group of astronomers eager to learn what news he could bring them, for there are few natural philosophers as frustrated as astronomers in a fog.

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

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

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

I’m working on another Lyra book right now – it’s called The Book of Dust.“It’s going very well and it will be finished when I write the words ‘The End’.

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

Princess, princess, youngest daughter, Open up and let me in!Or else your promise by the waterIsn’t worth a rusty pin.Keep your promise, royal daughter, Open up and let me in!

I don't like rats any more than the next bloke, but they ain't wicked and cruel like people can be. They're just ratty in their habits.

Tell them stories.

We measure the value of a civilized society by the number of Libraries it opens, not the number it closes down.