Philip Pullman · 405 pages
Rating: (19.3K votes)
“Finally, I’d say to anyone who wants to tell these tales, don’t be afraid to be superstitious. If you have a lucky pen, use it. If you speak with more force and wit when wearing one red sock and one blue one, dress like that. When I’m at work I’m highly superstitious. My own superstition has to do with the voice in which the story comes out. I believe that every story is attended by its own sprite, whose voice we embody when we tell the tale, and that we tell it more successfully if we approach the sprite with a certain degree of respect and courtesy. These sprites are both old and young, male and female, sentimental and cynical, sceptical and credulous, and so on, and what’s more, they’re completely amoral: like the air-spirits who helped Strong Hans escape from the cave, the story-sprites are willing to serve whoever has the ring, whoever is telling the tale. To the accusation that this is nonsense, that all you need to tell a story is a human imagination, I reply, ‘Of course, and this is the way my imagination works.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
“The fairy tale is in a perpetual state of becoming and alteration. To keep to one version or one translation alone is to put robin redbreast in a cage.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
“Princess, princess, youngest daughter,
Open up and let me in!
Or else your promise by the water
Isn’t worth a rusty pin.
Keep your promise, royal daughter,
Open up and let me in!”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
“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.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
“the particular plant longed for by the wife, which was originally parsley, was a well-known abortifacient.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
“Much ingenious interpretation of story is little more than seeing pleasing patterns in the sparks of a fire, but it does no harm.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
“and she saw a bed of lamb’s lettuce, or rapunzel.”
― Philip Pullman, quote from Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version
Philip Pullman
Born place: in Norwich, Norfolk, England, The United Kingdom
Born date October 19, 1946
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“The world knows nothing of you. That is my gift to you. You are no one.”
― Mark Allen Smith, quote from The Inquisitor
“And at 10:23 p.m. Central Time, a cornfield in Buttercup, Iowa split open and It emerged: that selfsame deity that the Pre-Atlantean, Post-Lemurian Serpent Priests addressed by Seven-Thousand-and-Twelve Sacred Names (Number Eleven translating to “Whatever It Is, We Wish It Would Just Leave Us Alone”); that lugubrious critter known to the ancient Aztecs as He-Who-Drips-Sweat-All-Over-Our-Nice-Clean-Temple, to whom they sacrificed the lymph nodes of their enemies after they’d given the hearts to gods they actually liked.”
― Mark McLaughlin, quote from Best Little Witch-House in Arkham
“If I was feeling like a challenge, I'd kick out the plug, turn the taps on and see if I could maintain the exact water level. It was a bit like balancing the clutch in an old Mini Metro. Although tricky at first, by the time I checked out I could find the bath's biting point within three minutes. Satisfying? Just bit.”
― Alan Partridge, quote from I, Partridge: We Need to Talk About Alan
“For you, you have a toolbox filled with words. If one doesn't work, you find another one. Or another one. Or another. You change your words like most people change mobile phones. There is no permanence, no commitment, nothing sexy about any word that you use. And that's what I am: I'm your words, Morgan.”
― Morgan Parker, quote from Non Friction
“We have to stop, this is insane. I literally cannot handle anymore. I think I’ve lost brain function. I can actually feel myself becoming stupid”
…
“Not possible. Let’s test it. What’s two times two?”
“Orange?”
― Alice Clayton, quote from The Unidentified Redhead
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